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AN APPROACH TO 
WALT WHITMAN 



BY 



CARLETON NOYES 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(C&e fitoerjji&e pre£? Cambridge 
1910 



.■NL 



COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY CARLETON NOYES 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published April jqio 



©CI.A261987 



TO 
EUGENE HEFFLEY 



I charge you forever reject those who would 
expound me, for I cannot expound myself, 

I charge that there be no theory or school 
founded out of me, 

I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all 
free. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Man . _, . i 

II. Whitman's Art ... 46 

III. The Human Appeal . . . 102 

IV. The Soul's Adventure . . 132 
V. To You 196 



AN APPROACH TO WALT 
WHITMAN 



THE MAN 

Camerado, this is no book, 
Who touches this touches a man. 

A big, gray, leisurely figure, ample, un- 
constrained, somewhat uncouth per- 
haps, but nevertheless strangely engaging 
by virtue of a native ease of manner and 
his manifest sincerity, — this is the image 
in broad strokes that suggests itself on 
mention of the name of Walt Whitman. 
It is a figure familiar in picture and by re- 
port. The flowing, wind-tossed beard and 
hair, the kindly mouth, the far-seeing eyes, 
the free-and-easy lilt of the large-framed 
body, distinguish him among the crowd, 
and invest him with the authority of nat- 

i 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ural things. Obviously, he is not an indoor 
product. He is a growth of the soil, of the 
sun and rain and the wide winds. Rugged, 
untrimmed, he has the breadth and suf- 
ficiency that Nature imparts to the things 
that grow in harmony with her generous 
laws. One has heard of his odd way of life, 
trying his hand at a little of everything, 
not sticking to anything for long, a good 
deal of a loafer, a wanderer, and every- 
body's friend. He follows the open road, 
tracing some clue of his own, and content 
with the straws of experience that chance 
blows across his path. Among his numer- 
ous and varied exploits, he has made some 
fantastic-looking verses. 

Walt Whitman is a name in literature, 
though it is in drawing-rooms and libraries 
that he would seem to be least at home. 
If he has written a book, it must be dif- 
ferent from most. Such a personality as 
this must surely overflow the constraint 
of words and reach out beyond the printed 



THE MAN 

page. His book, as it happens, is only a 
cluster of grass that he has gathered along 
his loitering way. But these casual leaves, 
fresh and alive with the climbing sap, are 
tokens of an immense reality. They are 
the well-considered offering of a genuine 
man. 

In " Leaves of Grass," Walt Whitman 
is revealed as a thinker of profound in- 
sight and as an authentic poet. But more 
persuasive than his thought, more moving 
than his poetry, is the man himself. He 
is a presence. His secret, the spell which 
draws and holds us, is personality. The 
literary character of his work is incidental. 
His poetry is a means, the means that 
Whitman chooses for communicating his 
experience. The experience itself, realized 
vividly at first hand, is the main concern. 
Calling us out of the library into the streets 
and the open air, he takes us away from 
art accomplished and brings us direct to 
things. For these are "the real poems 

3 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

(what we call poems being merely pic- 
tures)." The culture that he represents is 
not in the books : it is the training of the 
sensibilities through the discipline of con- 
tact with immediate reality. He substi- 
tutes life for a tradition ; his gift is vital 
human intercourse now and here. What 
we may expect to find in Whitman, as we 
turn his pages, is an actual friend and com- 
rade. His poetry is finally the communi- 
cation of himself. By the medium of his 
verse, he shares his experience with us, 
making us partakers of it and of its fruits 
through imaginative sympathy. 

The avenues of approach to Whitman 
are many. We may take him purely as a 
poet, luxuriating in the sheer beauty of 
his phrasing in numberless inspired pass- 
ages. We may regard him in a more mili- 
tant aspect, as the prophet of Democracy, 
the self-appointed bard of "these States,*' 
and interpreter to himself of the average 
man. His political and economic theoriz- 

4 



THE MAN 

ing, elaborated especially in his prose writ- 
ings, though not of the orthodox schools, 
deserves consideration, as showing keen 
insight and a power of shrewd criticism. 
For some readers, the final significance 
of " Leaves of Grass " will consist in its 
philosophic doctrine, its treatment of the 
ultimate themes, — of God, of Being, 
of the purport of life, the mystery of death, 
the hope of immortality. But in general, I 
believe that Whitman has most for those 
who meet him at the outset as a man. The 
reading of Whitman is not merely aesthetic 
in its effect, an imaginative and emotional 
excitation, though it is that in part. Nor 
is it simply an intellectual exercise and a 
dim excursion into regions of abstraction. 
Whitman goes all the way round life. Our 
contact with him is contact with an actual 
human being in the flesh, and it is at- 
tended with practical consequences for our 
wayfaring through the world. Walt Whit- 
man is a comrade for the journey. 

5 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Beginning my studies the first step pleas' d me so much, 
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power 

of motion, 
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, 
The first step I say awed me and pleas' d me so much, 
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, 
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic 

songs. 

In these lines Whitman defines his re- 
lation to the world and to experience. He 
is a lounger through life, acted upon rather 
than acting. His attitude is one of awe 
and wonder ; the result is ecstasy. The 
universe for him is a procession ; and he 
is a delighted though quiescent looker-on. 
As persons, objects, events move by, the 
throng of the streets, the play of human 
energies and occupations, the acting out 
of " God's calm annual drama," — 

Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, 

Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, 

The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the mus- 
ical, strong waves, 

The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering 
trees, 

6 



THE MAN 

The liliput countless armies of the grass, 
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, 
The scenery of the snows, the winds' free orchestra, 
The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear ce- 
rulean and the silvery fringes, 
The high dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars, 
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald 

meadows, 
The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths 
and products, — 

little by little he is absorbed, taken up by 
them, and he becomes in himself the thing 
on which he looks. He identifies himself 
with all forms. The whole world for him 
is animate, instinct with feeling and big 
with purpose. He enters into the life of 
all kinds of men, he realizes in himself the 
conditions of every variety of human ex- 
perience. 

I understand the large hearts of heroes, 

The courage of present times and all times, 

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck 

of the steam-ship, and Death chasing it up and 

down the storm, 
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and 

was faithful of days and faithful of nights, 

7 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

And chalk' d in large letters on a board, Be of good 
cheer , we will not desert you ; 

How he follow' d with them and tack'd with them three 
days and would not give it up, 

How he saved the drifting company at last, 

How the lank loose-gown' d women look' d when boated 
from the side of their prepared graves, 

How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and 
the sharp-lipp'd unshaved men; 

All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it be- 
comes mine, 

I am the man, I suffer' d, I was there. 

But it is not a question of human experi- 
ence only. Every natural object is alive, 
plays its part, and implicates ultimate 
meanings. 

You air that serves me with breath to speak ! 

You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and 
give them shape ! 

You light that wraps me and all things in delicate 
equable showers ! 

You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the road- 
sides ! 

I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you 
are so dear to me. 

In the manifold discrete objects of the ex- 
ternal world Whitman finds the expression 

8 



THE MAN 

and fulfillment of himself. He loves them 
with a radiant, inclusive love, for he is of 
them and they are of him. Caught up into 
a whole of ecstasy, together they embrace 
the cosmos. 

So, absorbing and absorbed, Whitman 
loiters along the road. In wide fields under 
spacious skies, he loafs and invites his 
soul. Whether he is " looking in at the 
shop-windows of Broadway, flatting the 
flesh of my nose on the thick plate-glass/' 
or " wandering the same afternoon with 
my face turn'd up to the clouds, or down 
a lane or along the beach," each moment 
and whatever happens thrills him with joy. 
A " caresser of life," he basks in the radia- 
tions of influence exhaling from every ob- 
ject. Himself " effusing and fluid, a phan- 
tom curiously floating, now here absorb'd 
and arrested," he enters into mystical com- 
munion with the whole. 

Mystical in the last analysis this atti- 
tude certainly is, but the immediate and 

9 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

practical outcome of it is an immense 
sympathy. Identifying himself with every 
form of life, with every object, he comes 
to understand it with an understanding that 
transcends the mere exercise of the intel- 
lect ; his contact with the world is one 
of feeling. It is precisely by the power of 
sympathy that Whitman is enabled to 
impress his personality upon us primarily 
as a man. High and far into regions of 
thought he will carry us and open to us 
cosmic vistas, if we will follow him ; but 
his feet are planted squarely upon earth, 
and he is always very close to things. He 
makes us feel that his experience is just 
common human experience after all, — 
yours, mine, any man's. 

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, 
The dark threw its patches down upon me also. 

• • • • . • • • • 

Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, 
I am he who knew what it was to be evil, 
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, 



10 



THE MAN 
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, 

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laugh- 
ing, gnawing, sleeping, 

Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or 
actress, 

The same old role, the role that is what we make it, 
as great as we like, 

Or as small as we like, or both great and small. 

Universal in the range of his sympathy, 
like some messiah Whitman takes up into 
himself the widest and deepest life of all 
men. He rejoices in their joy, he suffers 
in their sufferings. He knows. The assur- 
ance of such understanding of one's own 
experience and needs, of companionship 
where others perhaps have failed to pene- 
trate the isolation of one's separate life, 
this is the appeal that sounds from out 
his pages to press more intimately into 
a knowledge of this strange, great-hearted, 
answering man. 

In the total achievement of Walt Whit- 
man, all elements converge to the power 

1 1 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

of attraction by sheer force of personality. 
Endowed by birth with a great and ample 
nature, with a universally responsive tem- 
perament and with all-inclusive sympa- 
thies, Whitman devoted his entire life to 
the development of his gifts and the frui- 
tion of himself. Himself was his career, 
— but wholly consecrated always to the 
service of mankind. As an agent in that 
development, contributing to and fulfilling 
that fruition, his literary work is saturated 
with personality, and it takes its significance 
in the measure that it is the expression, not 
of what he knew or what he thought, but 
of what he felt and was. Toward the ac- 
complishment of fullest and freest expres- 
sion, his poetry is stripped of all adorn- 
ments. It is as a runner in a race. His verse 
is muscle and sinew, clean, naked, throb- 
bing with red blood, open to the sun and 
winds. It is not here a question of art for 
art's sake, the graces of phrase and refine- 
ments of style. Without surplusage it 

12 



THE MAN 

presses to its goal. The goal, — commun- 
ication of personality ; the means to it, — 
expression at any cost : a medium pecul- 
iarly adapted to its end and fulfilling it 
with success ; the end, — utterance of a 
love that is at once individual and cosmic ; 
— here is the secret of Whitman's sym- 
pathy and power. 

To start with, therefore, Whitman was 
a bigger man than most. And then his 
poetry is so shaped as to give that central 
bigness its completest and most direct ex- 
pression. So it is that the work of Whit- 
man is surcharged with personality. In this 
exposition of personality — considered for 
the moment apart from the special message 
that it carries — lies the primary and es- 
sential distinctiveness of this poetry. But, 
it may be asked, why distinctiveness ? 
Wherein, in this respect, does Whitman's 
work differ from the poetry, the art, of 
other men ? All art is in a degree the ut- 
terance of personality, the bodying forth 

13 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

in concrete expressive symbols of what the 
artist has thought and felt. Yes, in a de- 
gree. The work of every artist, whatever 
his subject and his medium, expresses 
something of himself. Whether he paints 
a portrait or a landscape, whether he com- 
poses a song or a symphony, whether he 
writes a poem, a novel, or a play, some- 
thing of his own life and experience inevit- 
ably goes into his work. In general, how- 
ever, the artist himself is only implied in 
his art and not fully expressed. We must 
pass beyond the work, the subject and the 
medium, and we must divine the man. 

The work of Whitman exhibits this dif- 
ference from other art and achieves its 
primary distinction thus, that by deliberate 
and conscious intention, it is wholly, undis- 
guisedly, relentlessly, the exposition, in- 
deed the exploitation, of personality. Of 
him it is not to be said that he expresses 
himself by means of his subject. He him- 
self is the subject. The title of his earliest 

H 



THE MAN 

and longest poem applies with equal force 
to the entire volume of his work. It is the 
<c Song of Myself." His purpose was, as 
he has defined it retrospectively in a post- 
script to " Leaves of Grass," " to articulate 
and faithfully express in literary or poetic 
form, and uncompromisingly, my own phy- 
sical, emotional, moral, intellectual, and 
aesthetic Personality, in the midst of, and 
tallying, the momentous spirit and facts of 
its immediate days, and of current America 
— and to exploit that Personality, iden- 
tified with place and date, in a far more 
candid and comprehensive sense than any 
hitherto poem or book." Thus " Leaves 
of Grass " is the complete explication, de- 
tailed and multitudinous, of the personality 
of Whitman, a single individual, living a 
certain definite kind of life in America in 
the middle and later years of the nineteenth 
century. But at the same time that the 
book is individual in its details, it is uni- 
versal in its application. Though Whitman 

15 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

interprets the world in terms of his own 
experience, we must not overlook his typ- 
ical and representative character. We miss 
the meaning of his work if we fail to see 
that 

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, 
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breed- 
ing, 
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or 
apart from them, — 

this Whitman, gathering into himself every 
person, character, experience, is but speak- 
ing for all men or any man. 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

It is, then, as the representative of you 
and me that Whitman, actually or imagina- 
tively, sounds the depths of every emotion, 
penetrates the recesses of men's motives, 
feelings, and acts, sends out his being into 
all life, and absorbs the cosmos into him- 
self. In his person we have an embodi- 

16 



THE MAN 

ment of our separate individual experience ; 
and to that extent his poetry becomes for 
us our own expression. 

Such is, in general terms, the figure of 
Walt Whitman in literature, — his total 
attitude and special point of view. What 
he stands for in poetry, what we may ex- 
pect to find in him as we approach his 
work, is a compelling attractive personal 
force. We meet him on the ground of a 
common humanity. The essence of his 
personality is distilled for us in his poetry, 
and therein we have the man in his fullest 
revelation. But what he was is expressed 
also in the external events of his life; and 
these in turn recoiled upon him to mould 
and modify the receptive, always plastic, 
disposition that was his by birth. A wider 
understanding of the man and his work, 
therefore, may be won by a rapid survey 
of his actual adventures in the world of 
men and things. 

17 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

The story, indeed, can be told, briefly, 
for with the exception of one divinely he- 
roic, devoted service, extending through 
a period of three years, a service titanic in 
its effort and incalculably beneficent in its 
results, the external incidents of Whitman's 
life are commonplace enough in the recital. 
Their significance lies in his reaction on 
them and in what he was able to wrest from 
them of spiritual experience. The very 
commonplaceness of it all lends it an added 
meaning, for his mission precisely was to 
endow "common lives" with the "glows 
and glories and final illustriousness which 
belong to every real thing, and to real 
things only." Average life is his theme, 
— ordinary men and women, cities, fields, 
the sky, morning, noon, and sunset, night 
and the stars, things "eligible" to all. 
These are his theme, yet these not in them- 
selves, but as interpreted by personality. 
For these things, as he says, "involve not 
only their own inherent quality, but the 

18 



THE MAN 

quality, just as inherent and important, of 
their point of viewy The circumstances 
of Whitman's life are momentous as they 
illustrate his point of view ; and in them, 
as we run them over, we may try to see 
the expression of the man. 

In the prose volume, " Specimen Days 
and Collect," Whitman has recorded a 
number of interesting autobiographical 
details. We learn that he was sprung from 
old-world stock, long resident in America, 
— Dutch on his mother's side, with an ad- 
mixture of Quaker, and on his father's side, 
English Puritan. Hardihood, vigor, and 
courage both bodily and mental, a large- 
ness of nature which comes with life out 
of doors, tenacity, receptiveness, simplic- 
ity, love of plainness, — plain living, plain 
people, — a thoroughgoing democracy of 
attitude and conduct, personal cleanliness, 
grasp of detail, uncompromising sincerity, 
profound religiousness with little regard 
for external forms, high spirituality and 

'9 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

idealism, — these were the boy's inherit- 
ance from forbears immediate and diverg- 
ingly remote. Walt (named Walter after 
his father), the second of nine children, 
was born May 31, 18 19, — the same year 
with John Ruskin and James Russell 
Lowell, — at West Hills, near Hunting- 
ton, on the northern shore of Long Island. 
His father was a farmer, and a carpenter 
and builder. When the boy was four years 
old, the family removed to Brooklyn, at 
that time a "village" often to twelve thou- 
sand inhabitants, and with its trees, parks, 
and open spaces, more like the country 
than a city. Here he attended the common 
schools until the age of thirteen, learning 
the "three R's" and a little grammar and 
geography. Following this meagre school- 
ing, he found a place in a lawyer's office 
as errand-boy. His employer helped him 
with his handwriting and composition, and 
subscribed for him to a big circulating 

library. Now he " revel'd in romance-read- 

20 



THE MAN 

ing of all kinds ; first, the c Arabian Nights/ 
all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, 
with sorties in very many other directions, 
took in Walter Scott's novels, one after 
another, and his poetry." After about two 
years he went to work in a weekly news- 
paper and printing office, to learn the trade. 

u I develop'd (i 833-4-5)," he says, " into a 
healthy, strong youth (grew too fast, though, 
was nearly as big as a man at 15 or 16.) . . . 
At 16, 17, and so on, was fond of debating so- 
cieties, and had an active membership with 
them. ... A most omnivorous novel-reader, 
these and later years, devour' d everything I 
could get. Fond of the theatre, also, in New 
York, went whenever I could — sometimes wit- 
nessing fine performances. 1836—7, work'd as 
compositor in printing offices in New York 
city. Then, when little more than 18, and for 
a while afterwards, went to teaching country 
schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties, 
Long Island, and ' boarded round.' (This latter 
I consider one of my best experiences and deep- 
est lessons in human nature behind the scenes 

21 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

and in the masses.) In '39, '40, I started and 
publish'd a weekly paper in my native town, 
Huntington. Then returning to New York city 
and Brooklyn, work'd on as printer and writer, 
mostly prose, but an occasional shy at c poetry.' 
. . . The years 1846, '47, and there along, see 
me still in New York city, working as writer 
and printer, having my usual good health, and a 
good time generally. ... In 1848, '49, I was 
occupied as editor of the * Daily Eagle ' news- 
paper, in Brooklyn. The latter year went off on 
a leisurely journey and working expedition (my 
brother Jeff with me) through all the middle 
States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 
Lived awhile in New Orleans, and work'd there 
on the editorial staff of c Daily Crescent ' news- 
paper. After a time plodded back northward, 
up the Mississippi, and around to, and by the 
way of the great lakes, Michigan, Huron, and 
Erie, to Niagara Falls and Lower Canada, finally 
returning through central New York and down 
the Hudson ; traveling altogether probably 8000 
miles this trip, to and fro. '51, '53, occupied 
in house-building in Brooklyn." 



22 



THE MAN 

This occupation he gave up, as he found 
he was beginning to make money, and he 
wanted to remain free. In 1855, to con- 
tinue Whitman's own narrative, — 

" commenced putting ' Leaves of Grass ' to 
press for good, at the job printing office of my 
friends, the brothers Rome, in Brooklyn, after 
many MS. doings and undoings — (I had great 
trouble in leaving out the stock ' poetical ' 
touches, but succeeded at last)." 

Of the first edition of" Leaves of Grass " 
Emerson said in a letter to Whitman, " I 
greet you at the beginning of a great ca- 
reer, which yet must have had a long fore- 
ground somewhere for such a start." In 
the bare recital of the external facts of 
Whitman's early life, this foreground re- 
mains still unexplained. For the real signi- 
ficance of these years of boyhood, youth, 
and early maturity lies in the influences 
of out-of-doors and the contact with ele- 
mental forces in Nature and in men. 

2 3 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

There was a child went forth every day, 

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he be- 
came, 

And that object became part of him for the day or a 
certain part of the day, 

Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. 

There, and not in outward incidents and 
acts, is the real record of those years. To 
the casual onlooker, Whitman was an in- 
different workman ; a loafer many thought 
him. He did not continue long at any one 
job, and he worked at that intermittently, 
and only when and as he pleased. He al- 
lowed himself many days off, sometimes 
weeks at a stretch. But the days were not 
wasted or unemployed. Results were not 
evident at once in terms of a day's wages. 
If the idle weeks made the judicious grieve, 
they counted finally as the judicious were 
not able to guess. He spent much time 
on Long Island in the open, roaming the 
woods and fields, or holding intimate, mys- 
tic communion with the sea. It is difficult 

to define in words the quality of this ex- 

24 



THE MAN 

perience. It must be felt ; and Whitman 
makes us feel it in his poetry. It is an es- 
sence and an effluence. Words are an 
affair of the intellect ; whereas Whitman's 
relation to things was less intellectual than 
spiritual and actually physical. He ab- 
sorbed with his body. He loved to lie 
naked in the wind and sun; or after bath- 
ing in the sea, he raced up and down the 
beach in Adamic simplicity and freshness, 
"declaiming Homer or Shakspere to the 
surf and sea-gulls by the hour." The es- 
sence of these sights, these contacts, bil- 
lowing, multiform, and rhythmic as the 
grass, is distilled for us in Whitman's pages, 
through the magic of his " divine power 
to speak words," exhaling from them like 
an aroma and tactile sensation. A single 
incident of his boyhood, as he has re- 
counted it in his verse, may suggest his 
attitude toward experience, and may serve 
to typify results, as he " absorbed and 
translated." 

25 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, 
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, 
Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the 
child leaving his bed wander' d alone, bare- 
headed, barefoot, 
Down from the shower' d halo, 

Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twist- 
ing as if they were alive, 
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, 
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, 
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings 

and fallings I heard, 
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen 

as if with tears, 
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there 

in the mist, 
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, 
From the myriad thence-arous'd words, 
From the word stronger and more delicious than any, 
From such as now they start the scene revisiting, 
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, 
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, 
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, 
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, 
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, 
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond 

them, 
A reminiscence sing. 



26 



THE MAN 

Profoundly and intimately as Whitman 
was penetrated by the inner meanings of 
nature, yet the streets and myriad-teeming 
life of cities were no less significant and 
fruitful. Always self-possessed and at ease 
in his big fashion in the presence of any 
man, he especially liked "powerful, unedu- 
cated persons," and he went freely among 
them ; he hobnobbed with them, made 
them his friends and cronies. Almost daily, 
while living in Brooklyn and New York, 
after his return from the South, he crossed 
on the Fulton Ferry, 

" often up in the pilot-houses where I could get 
a full sweep, absorbing shows, accompaniments, 
surroundings. What oceanic currents, eddies, 
underneath — the great tides of humanity also, 
with ever-shifting movements. Indeed, I have 
always had a passion for ferries ; to me they 
afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living 
poems." " Besides Fulton Ferry," he continues, 
" off and on for years, I knew and frequented 
Broadway — that noted avenue of New York's 

27 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many 
notables. . . . Always something novel or in- 
spiriting ; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast 
amplitude of those never-ending human cur- 
rents." 

One phase of these days, Whitman says, 
must by no means go unrecorded, — namely 
the Broadway omnibuses and the 

" men specially identified with them, and giving 
vitality and meaning to them — the drivers — a 
strange, natural, quick-eyed and wondrous race. 
. . . How many hours, forenoons and after- 
noons — how many exhilarating night-times I 
have had — perhaps June or July, in cooler air 
— riding the whole length of Broadway, listen- 
ing to some yarn, (and the most vivid yarns ever 
spun, and the rarest mimicry) — or perhaps I 
declaiming some stormy passage from 'Julius 
Caesar' or l Richard,' (you could roar as loudly 
as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted 
street-bass). Yes, I knew all the drivers then, 
Broadway Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George 
Storms, Old Elephant, his brother Young Ele- 
phant, (who came afterward,) Tippy, Pop Rice, 

28 



THE MAN 

Big Frank, Yellow Joe, Pete Callahan, Patsey 
Dee, and dozens more ; for there were hun- 
dreds." 

In this loving, reminiscent recital of the 
quaint nicknames, there is a flavor of 
that curious intimacy of understanding that 
Whitman had, which illustrates, better than 
any possible definition, his extraordinary 
personal magnetism. It is evident that he 
liked these rough, natural men, and knew 
them through and through ; and in return 
they liked him, because he was a real man, 
no "yellow streak" in him, and they un- 
derstood him. This was Whitman's way 
with everybody. He continues : — 

u Not only for comradeship, and sometimes 
affection — great studies I found them also. (I 
suppose the critics will laugh heartily, but the 
influence of those Broadway omnibus jaunts and 
drivers and declamations and escapades undoubt- 
edly enter' d into the gestation of * Leaves of 
Grass/ )" 

So, Whitman was being educated as a 

29 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

poet ! It took him longer than most men 
to find himself; and in his capacity for sin- 
gle-minded, unmitigated enjoyment, there 
was always something of the boy about him. 
Everything that came his way counted, and 
was turned to his own uses. People saw 
him lounging through life, large and free 
in his movements, and careless of time. 
Perhaps they smiled indulgently, for his 
abundant ease and good-nature were con- 
tagious ; possibly some condemned him. 
But there were processes at work which 
people did not observe. He went his own 
way and took his time. For he saw what 
they did not see, — the mystery and true 
meaning of life. And he knew what they 
did not know, — how certain is the future. 
Whitman's artistic training was won in 
the same haphazard, inconsequent, and re- 
ceptive fashion. It came to ^him not as a 
discipline but as enjoyment. In these early 
years he read much, but always where his 
whim and liking showed the way. Books 

3° 



THE MAN 

for him were not mere literature : they were 
like men, or scenes in Nature. His habit 
was to read in the presence of outdoor 
influences. He went over thoroughly the 
Old and New Testaments, and 

u absorb'd (probably to better advantage for me 
than in any library or indoor room — it makes 
such difference where you read) Shakspere, 
Ossian, the best translated versions I could get 
of Homer, Eschylus, Sophocles, the old German 
Nibelungen, the ancient Hindoo poems, and one 
or two other masterpieces, Dante's among them. ,, 
The Iliad, in a prose version, he read first thor- 
oughly " in a shelter' d hollow of rocks and 
sand, with the sea on each side." And he adds, 
" I have wonder' d since why I was not over- 
whelm'd by those mighty masters. Likely be- 
cause I read them, as described, in the full 
presence of Nature, under the sun, with the 
far-spreading landscape and vistas, or the sea 
rolling in." 

So, also, Whitman's own poetry is read 
to its best effect not in a library but out 

3> 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

of doors, in the same spirit in which he 
declaimed his " Leaves " to himself in the 
open air, and " tried them by trees, stars, 
rivers." 

Even in the matter of books, then, 
Whitman was at heart a primal man, true 
child of Nature, loving life. But for a time 
in Brooklyn and New York, as part of his 
many-sided development, he figured as a 
literary personage. He was associated now 
and again with various newspapers. He 
wrote stories and verse which found accept- 
ance and a place in leading magazines. He 
was the author of a " temperance novel." 
He trained himself to be a public speaker, 
came forward in debates and political meet- 
ings, and drew up outlines for talks on his- 
tory, philosophy, and art. He wrote what 
his mother called "barrels of lectures." 
Whitman's writing at this time, both prose 
and verse, shows a certain vigor of mind and 
reveals an interest in public affairs, a strong 
democratic spirit, and sympathy with the 

3 2 



THE MAN 

common people ; but his style is " liter- 
ary" and conventional, without individual 
distinction. In it all, there is little hint of 
what was to come. 

Perhaps the most potent influence on 
Whitman's purely aesthetic development 
was his unflagging attendance at the theatre 
and the opera. As a boy and young man 
he saw " (reading them carefully the day 
beforehand) quite all Shakspere's acting 
dramas, played wonderfully well." He 
says, characteristically, that he always 
scanned an audience as rigidly as the play, 
and he speaks of" the whole crowded audi- 
torium, and what seeth'd in it, and flush'd 
from its faces and eyes, to me as much a 
part of the show as any." Whitman was 
not himself a musician, but he had a deep 
love and genuinely intelligent appreciation 
of music. In poetry, he cared for the big 
things, the elemental, greatest world-poems. 
Painting seemed to interest him but little, 
for in his writings there are slight refer- 

33 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ences to pictures, although he speaks with 
enthusiasm of several hours spent with a 
collection of Millet's paintings and draw- 
ings. Of all the arts, music made the most 
direct aesthetic appeal and reached him most 
intimately. In his own work, poems like 
" The Mystic Trumpeter," " That Music 
Always Round Me," and " Proud Music 
of the Storm," and many shorter passages 
in the " Leaves " are vibrant with a deep 
and exquisite musical feeling. 

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, 
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I 
possess' d them. 

During the years in New York, Whitman 
had abundant opportunity to hear good 
music. " I heard," he says, " these years, 
well render'd, all the Italian and other 
operas in vogue." And he remarks else- 
where, " The experts and musicians of my 
present friends claim that the new Wagner 
and his pieces belong far more truly to 
me, and I to them. Very likely. But I was 

34 



THE MAN 

fed and bred under the Italian dispensa- 
tion, and absorb'd it, and doubtless show 
it." 

The years up to 1850 were a time of 
preparation, indeterminate and more or 
less unconscious, it would seem, on Whit- 
man's part. Then came a change. A sud- 
den illumination flooded the dark gropings 
after something, and there was revealed to 
him the single meaning of the complex 
years. Capacities were there, latent, partly 
exercised, half-developed, but as yet to no 
end. Now all things flowed together, took 
shape, and became a Purpose. The bud, 
which had been slowly forming, burst into 
instant flower. The moment was sharp and 
definite in time. The result was cosmic in 
its scope and influence. As he lay, one 
" transparent summer morning," a new con- 
sciousness was born in him : it was the sud- 
den, vivid, direct realization of God and of 
his own soul. 

35 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and 

knowledge that pass all the argument of the 

earth, 
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my 

own, 
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of 

my own, 
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, 

and the women my sisters and lovers, 
And that a kelson of the creation is love. 

This sense of the unity of the Whole, the 
oneness of all creation with its creator, of 
love as the vitalizing, all-fusing energy 
that throbs in every atom of the universe, 
is the germinal motive and life-essence of 
" Leaves of Grass. " 

From this time on, Whitman set him- 
self deliberately to the making of his po- 
ems. 

"After continued personal ambition and ef- 
fort, as a young fellow, to enter with the rest 
into competition for the usual rewards, business, 
political, literary, etc. ... I found myself re- 
maining possess'd, at the age of thirty-one to 
thirty-three, with a special desire and convic- 

3 6 



THE MAN 

tion. Or rather, to be quite exact, a desire that 
had been flitting through my previous life, or 
hovering on the flanks, mostly indefinite hith- 
erto, had steadily advanced to the front, defined 
itself, and finally dominated everything else." 

This desire was to set forth his entire 
personality against the background of "its 
immediate days and of current America," 
in a form and in terms new in literature. 
At the time when this desire was becom- 
ing articulate, Whitman was employed as 
a carpenter. His outward life, as it ap- 
peared to others, is thus described by his 
brother George. 

" I was in Brooklyn in the early fifties, when 
Walt came back from New Orleans. We all 
lived together. No change seemed to come over 
him; he was the same man he had been, grown 
older and wiser. He made a living now — wrote 
a little, worked a little, loafed a little. ... We 
did not know what he was writing. He did not 
seem more abstracted than usual. He would lie 
abed late, and after getting up would write a 

37 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

few hours if he took the notion — perhaps would 
go off the rest of the day. -We were all at work 
— all except Walt. But we knew he was print- 
ing the book." 

In view of Whitman's out-of-door ways, 
his absorption in Nature and his passion 
for streets and actual human contacts, it is 
easy to divine the processes of gestation 
of his poems. Lines were jotted down as 
they came to him, anywhere, on ferries 
and omnibuses, at his work, or in the the- 
atre. Then they were tested and tried by 
the sound of the wind or in sight of the 
sea. In 1855 he began the printing of his 
book, setting much of the type with his 
own hands ; and in that year, the volume, 
containing twelve poems, appeared under 
the title " Leaves of Grass." 

A thousand copies were printed. The 
book was placed on sale at several book- 
stores in New York and Brooklyn. Few, 
if any, copies were sold. In spite of this 
discouragement, and in the face of a storm 

38 



THE MAN 

of frenzied condemnation, protest, and 
abuse from reviewers and literary men, 
Whitman brought out the following year 
a second edition, containing twenty poems 
in addition to the original twelve. A third 
edition, adding one hundred and twenty- 
two new poems to the preceding thirty- 
two, was published in Boston in i860. 

Against the date, i860, Whitman writes, 
in " Specimen Days " : — 

" To sum up the foregoing from the outset, 
(and, of course, far, far more unrecorded,) I 
estimate three leading sources and formative 
stamps to my own character, now solidified for 
good or bad, and its subsequent literary and 
other outgrowth — the maternal nativity-stock 
brought hither from far-away Netherlands, for 
one, (doubtless the best) — the subterranean 
tenacity and central bony structure (obstinacy, 
wilfulness) which I get from my paternal Eng- 
lish elements, for another — and the combina- 
tion of my Long Island birth-spot, sea-shores, 
childhood's scenes, absorptions, with teeming 

39 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Brooklyn and New York — with, I suppose, 
my experiences afterward in the secession out- 
break, for the third. For, in 1862, startled by 
news that my brother George, an officer in the 
51st New York volunteers, had been seriously 
wounded, (first Fredericksburg battle, December 
13th,) I hurriedly went down to the field of war 
in Virginia." 

The story of the next three years is dif- 
ficult to tell. The quality of Whitman's 
service in the war-hospitals in Washing- 
ton is so immediate, so personal and inti- 
mate, that it cannot at this day be ade- 
quately phrased. The story must be read 
as Whitman himself has told it, so beauti- 
fully and movingly, yet with such simple, 
unconscious modesty, with extraordinary 
justice of word and reticence of sentiment, 
in the section of " Leaves of Grass " en- 
titled " Drum Taps/' in pages of " Speci- 
men Days/' and in the volume of letters 
named " The Wound Dresser." In the 
field and at Washington, for three years 

40 



THE MAN 

Whitman ministered to sick and wounded 
soldiers, — boys and very young men, 
most of them, from fifteen to twenty-five, 
— as a self-appointed messenger of relief. 
So he rendered countless and unspeakable 
services : distributing little gifts, some fruit, 
jellies, tobacco, writing-paper, and envel- 
opes already stamped, reading - matter, 
small sums of money; writing letters for 
the soldiers to the " folks at home " ; read- 
ing aloud ; humoring as far as possible 
every little whim; and above all, beyond 
any other gift, giving love and personal 
affection to lonely, homesick, wounded 
boys and unfriended dying men. " I can 
testify," he says, " that friendship has lit- 
erally cured a fever, and the medicine of 
daily affection, a bad wound." The money 
needed to carry on his work was contrib- 
uted by friends in the North. His own 
private expenses he was able to meet by 
writing for the newspapers. He lived with 
extreme frugality, but he took care always 

4i 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

to appear in the hospitals in health-giving 
freshness and cleanliness of body and dress. 
Thus he went among from eighty thousand 
to one hundred thousand of the sick and 
wounded, as " sustainer of spirit and body 
in some slight degree, in time of need." 

Without his experience of the War, 
Whitman has said, " Leaves of Grass " 
could not have been what it now is. His 
approach in closest intimacy to young men 
of all the States, North, West, and South, 
gave him, as nothing else could have given 
him, an understanding of the possibilities 
and the grandeur of this country, and its 
promise, in the human stuff of which it is 
composed, for the future of democracy. In 
the midst of agonies and death, the love 
of comrades which he had known through 
the years, and had celebrated in his poetry, 
came to its fullest sublime expression. In 
the awful wrench and compelling realities 
of such contacts, the last bonds of conven- 
tional restraints and superficial reserves 

42 



THE MAN 

were snapped asunder, and love flowed 
forth, enveloping all things in life-bringing 
floods. In the presence of death he divined 
death's meaning. He learned anew the 
power of faith, and the redeeming strength 
of hope in immortality. He saw how out 
of sacrifice and pain, joy is born, and evil 
is transfigured into good. These years of 
suffering and opportunity, as they were for 
him the supreme expression of comrade- 
ship, so they were the summit of his achieve- 
ment in his relations to his fellows, and 
they were the fruition-time of his genius. 
From this time on, his face is turned toward 
the Valley of the Shadow, which opens into 
the Light beyond. 

Toward the end of the War, Whitman's 
supremely perfect health, in which he had 
gloried, gave way to the superhuman drain 
upon it. His amazing vitality was weak- 
ened; and at last, while helping one day 
to dress a gangrenous wound in the hos- 
pital, he contracted blood-poisoning. From 

43 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

this attack he recovered, but his health was 
broken, never to be fully restored. About 
this time, Whitman obtained a clerkship in 
the Department of the Interior. Shortly 
afterward, he was removed by the Secre- 
tary of the Department, in circumstances 
little creditable to that official, for having 
published an immoral book. Almost im- 
mediately, however, he secured a clerkship 
in the Attorney-General's office. This po- 
sition he retained until 1873, wnen he was 
incapacitated by a stroke of paralysis. He 
removed to Camden, New Jersey, which 
he made his home during the remainder of 
his life. These years he gave to literary 
work, undisturbed by any important out- 
ward events, composing poems, writing 
prose, and bringing out successive editions 
of his works. He was able to spend much 
time out of doors, basking in the light, 
listening to Nature, and absorbing cosmic 
influences. His occupations and observa- 
tions are recorded with great charm in 

44 



THE MAN 

"Specimen Days." In 1879 he made a 
journey as far west as the Rocky Mount- 
ains, and home by way of Canada. In 
Camden he gathered about him a little 
company of devoted friends. Ill and poor, 
and still the object of bitter attack and 
threatened legal prosecution, he was nev- 
ertheless cheered by the recognition his 
work was receiving in England and on the 
Continent. There was more suffering than 
gladness for him now, but his serenity 
remained unshaken. His whole life justi- 
fied his poetry, and never more than in 
the closing years. He kept the faith to the 
end. At last the hour of quiet was vouch- 
safed, March 26, 1 892, and Walt Whitman 
was born again. 

Joy, shipmate, joy! 
(Pleas' d to my soul at death I cry,) 
Our life is closed, our life begins, 
The long, long anchorage we leave, 
The ship is clear at last, she leaps ! 
She swiftly courses from the shore, 
Joy, shipmate, joy. 



II 



WHITMAN S ART 

Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill' d from 
poems pass away, 

The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave 
ashes, 

Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the 
soil of literature, 

He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest orig- 
inal practical example. 

A reader of poetry, trained in literary- 
perception, seeking aesthetic experi- 
ence, and finding satisfaction in the rhyth- 
mic outlines of beautiful forms and in the 
music of measure and rhyme, opens "Leaves 
of Grass" to encounter a shock. At first 
glance he is bewildered and perhaps repelled. 
These rough, common, everyday words, 
these bumps and knots, these ejaculations, 
these strange, involved sentences or no- 
sentences, — this is not prose exactly, nor 

46 



WHITMAN'S ART 

does it seem to be poetry, as he is familiar 
with it. His eye falls on the line, " I sound 
my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the 
world." Not only is the poetry uncouth : 
this shaggy bard appears to be aware of his 
uncouthness and even to glory in it. Yet, 
perhaps, piqued by curiosity, the reader 
ventures a page or two, with open mind and 
attentive ear. Unaccountably, as it seems 
at first, the spell begins to lay hold upon 
him. Through these paragraphs undulates 
a subtle rhythm, like the rhythm of cosmic 
forces, — the ebb and flow of the tide, the re- 
turn of the seasons. These random phrases 
— are they not accidental? — fall with the 
eternal rightness of the fall of a stone ; they 
strike with the emphasis and sudden finality 
of a lightning-bolt. The power of it is un- 
deniable. In spite of himself, the reader sur- 
renders to the magic of this new strange ut- 
terance; and he asks himself wonderingly, 
What is poetry, after all ? 

In terms of a broad definition, poetry is 
47 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the articulate expression of emotion through 
the medium of concrete symbols phrased 
in words; it is impassioned speech. The 
form y by which poetry is distinguished from 
prose, is not a primary differentia, but fol- 
lows as a consequence upon the emotion 
within, which pulses outward to expression. 

Word over all, beautiful as the sky, 

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in 
time be utterly lost, 

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night inces- 
santly softly wash again, and ever again, this 
soil'd world ; 

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, 

I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin 
— I draw near, 

Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white 
face in the coffin. 

Here there is neither rhyme nor definite 

metre. The emotion is intense and the 

thought exalted ; bound up together, they 

embody themselves in a form, and they 

speak a language, which have the power to 

stir the reader and to rouse in him a mood 

consonant with the writer's own. Or again, 

48 



WHITMAN'S ART 

out of the mystery of the night and quick- 
ened by the touch of earth, the soul cries, — 

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, 
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. 
Press close, bare-bosom' d night — press close, magnetic 

nourishing night! 
Night of south winds — night of the large few stars ! 
Still nodding night — mad naked summer night. 

Smile, O voluptuous cool-breath' d earth! 

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees ! 

Earth of departed sunset — earth of the mountains misty- 

topt! 
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged 

with blue! 
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river ! 
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer 

for my sake! 
Far-swooping elbow' d earth — rich apple-blossom' d 

earth ! 
Smile, for your lover comes. 

Poetry in the great sense this work surely 
is. Those who are repelled by its form have 
not penetrated beneath the surface. For the 
distinction between prose and poetry is a 
matter less of external form than of content. 

49 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

The degree in which literature becomes po- 
etry is measured by the intensity of emotion 
it embodies and communicates, or by the 
exaltation of the thought expressed, or by 
the union of the two elements. In true 
poetry, the external form is a result. For 
intense emotion and exalted thought utter 
themselves naturally, inevitably, in rhyth- 
mic forms. Rhyme, which figures so largely 
in modern verse, came late into poetry, and 
then less as an essential part of the form 
than as an added ornament. Rhyme supplies 
to verse the character of melody, and by the 
addition of this musical quality heightens 
its immediately sensuous appeal. So rhyme 
may be called an accompaniment of poetry ; 
the foundation of the form is rhythm. 

As poetry differs in its nature both as 
to matter and as to manner, so it works a 
various effect. It may please by virtue of 
its form : the logic of its total structure, 
architectural, sculpturesque, or gemlike, 
satisfies the mind ; its musical qualities of 

50 



WHITMAN'S ART 

metre and rhyme and tone-color delight 
the ear; the beauty of suggested images 
fills the eye. The core of thought is beaten 
thin, to be drawn and wrought into a sur- 
face-pattern. In contrast to this sound- 
weaving and verbal jeweler's-work is the 
poetry of energy, which compels the form 
to its own uses, breaking through the con- 
fines of rhyme, coercing metre to change 
step at need, and surcharging its medium 
with the throbs of flexible, variant rhythm. 
It debouches, as it rises, — in intensity and 
exaltation. Emotion and thought dominate 
form. Its note is power; the result — not 
pleasure merely, but heightened activity of 
being and a larger grasp on life. 

In the case of Whitman, it is not im- 
portant finally to determine whether his 
work is prose or poetry. Clearly the char- 
acter of it is energy rather than formal 
charm. As it happens, subtleties of verbal 
distinctions are swept aside by his torrent- 
ial utterance. Established forms, accepted 

5i 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

canons, suffer shipwreck ; there is some 
loss and some beneficial purgation. Of the 
residuum emerging from the vortex it re- 
mains for us to consider the value. It ap- 
pears in the result that our concern with 
Whitman's work is not classification but 
his power to move us. After all, the vital 
worth of any art-product is not conformity 
but energy. In approaching cc Leaves of 
Grass," we may not content ourselves with 
excerpts and single passages ; we are to 
seek to understand the nature of the work 
as a whole. We may be helped toward that 
understanding by some insight into Whit- 
man's intentions regarding it, his hopes for 
it. Ultimately, however, the work is justi- 
fied by its results. These may be defined 
by each reader for himself as they bear on 
his individual temper and experience. My 
purpose here is simply to point the way. 

" Leaves of Grass " is what Whitman 
hoped to make it and believed it to be, — 

52 



WHITMAN'S ART 

a new thing in literature. It is a fresh start. 
Motive and content, vocabulary and verse- 
form are without precedent in English let- 
ters. Whereas the older poetry depends for 
its appeal upon stirring action or dramatic 
situation, or is the expression of some phase 
of temperament in an exceptional man, 
Whitman in contrast aims to set forth an 
entire personality, not exceptional but pos- 
sible to any man, acting in an environment, 
definite as to time and place, which offers 
only the incitements and occasions of aver- 
age daily life. His motive is new, in that 
the personality he records is taken in its 
entirety, in the small equally with the large. 
His method of attack is different, in that 
he divests himself of all the trappings of 
exalted station, unusual endowment, or 
erudite achievement. With ample gait and 
free assuredness of bearing, he moves into 
the page in the easy dress of a man of the 
people who earns his living by his hands. 
The stronghold of aristocracy in literature 

53 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

is stormed by an artisan of the streets and 
country-side, who makes himself at home 
upon the ruins and calmly builds himself 
a shelter there. Consequent upon this shift 
in emphasis, his manner of address is neces- 
sarily different, in that it is the speech and 
terminology of common men and things. 
A workman could exchange his comfort- 
able natural blouse for the rigid coat of 
evening wear more gracefully than such a 
purpose could clothe itself in the court 
costume of polite letters. New motive, 
new material, new form, — this is the task 
that Whitman deliberately set himself to 
achieve in poetry. 

Original and unique as the book is, it is 
not to be supposed that " Leaves of Grass " 
is an accident, or that Whitman cut loose 
from the past altogether. His first word 
to his new public — the opening sentence 
of the Preface of the first edition of his 
poems — reads : "America does not repel 
the past or what it has produced under its 

54 



WHITMAN'S ART 

forms." A period of seven or eight years 
was the time of gestation of the book, fol- 
lowing upon a long apprenticeship to the 
established craft of letters. His literary 
training, desultory as it was and quite at his 
own will and pleasure, reverted to sources 
and models of supreme excellence. He 
recognized the service of older literatures 
to their age and people, and he freely ad- 
mitted his own obligation to them. " If I 
had not stood," he says, " before those 
poems with uncover'd head, fully aware of 
their colossal grandeur and beauty of form 
and spirit, I could not have written c Leaves 
of Grass.' " But though the " temper and 
inculcation of the old works " helped to 
shape him, their chief profit to him was to 
furnish a basis of comparison and contrast 
with reference to his own purpose and en- 
vironment, and to supply less a model for 
emulation than a point of departure into 
the new. As America is a child and heir 
of the past, but independent now in its 

55 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

own right, and a new being, so Whitman's 
poetry is made possible by elder achieve- 
ment, an outgrowth from it by transmis- 
sion, but it is none the less in its own time 
self-begotten and self-sustained. The old 
world had the poems of " myths, fictions, 
feudalism, conquest, caste, dynastic wars, 
and splendid exceptional characters and af- 
fairs " ; the new world needs the poems of 
"realities and science and of the democratic 
average and basic equality." 

Another land and time, another art. 
" Grateful and reverent legatee of the past," 
the poet of America to-day is the native-born 
child of the new world. Acknowledging its 
debt to precedent songs, " Leaves of Grass " 
presupposes something different. The pro- 
tagonist advances to the centre of the stage, 
a new figure. The scene too is changed, and 
with it, all its accessories. It is no longer a 
question of myth, legend, or romance, or 
" choice plots of love or war " ; of heroes, 
great personages, or fine-drawn sensibilities. 

56 



WHITMAN'S ART 

The theme of the new song is your average 
man, going practically about his work, en- 
joying honestly his hours off, and always in 
direct actual contact with things. The thea- 
tre of his deeds is the workshop or the fields; 
his glory and illustriousness is to be himself; 
his recompense is to know reality. As Whit- 
man surveys the occupations and oppor- 
tunities of America, set off against the con- 
stricted environment of old-world poets, it 
seems to him "as if a poetry with cosmic 
and dynamic features of magnitude andlim- 
itlessness suitable to the human soul, were 
never possible before. " This poetry can 
draw its inspiration and supply all its 
needed symbols from the lives of com- 
mon men. 

Common life, if it is to find voice at all, 
must come to expression in its own terms. 
Fitly to celebrate the average man, we must 
speak his racy idiom ; to glorify things still 
in the making, we need the vernacular, — 
language that is still fluid and plastic in the 

57 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

mouths of men. There shall be no rigid 
forms, no polished reflecting surfaces; all 
shall be rough and fresh and smelling of the 
earth, — the fragrance of new-cut timber, 
the acrid tang of unset mortar; it must have 
movement to tally the rush and hubbub of 
the streets. With aggressive deliberateness 
and a fierce joy, Whitman denies himself 
all "stock ornaments." He will not give us 
a "mere tale, a rhyme, a prettiness " ; he will 
make a poem of materials and show how 
they furnish their parts toward the soul. 
The true art, said Millet, with whom Whit- 
man had so much in common, is " to make 
the trivial serve for the expression of the 
sublime. " Often with Whitman the trivial 
refused to unfold into the sublime, and be- 
came ridiculous. But no less often his per- 
formance exceeded himself, and his flight 
outstripped his aim. 

With this preliminary clearing of the 
ground, Whitman moved to the attack. He 
approached his work, equipped with a pro- 

58 



WHITMAN'S ART 

gramme and armed with a theory. He pro- 
posed to himself a definite task, and he had 
clearly conceived notions as to how he 
should accomplish it. His sense of the im- 
portance of his project, and the conscious 
elaborateness with which he set himself to 
the assault, worked for both good and ill. 
Had he been less ambitious in his aim, he 
could not have carried so far ; but his very 
comprehensiveness involved him in the 
tangle of the absurdly obvious and plunged 
him into the morasses of the obviously 
absurd. Had he been less conscious of 
his method, he could not have achieved his 
fresh sight of things, with his consequent 
grasp of the actual and his transcendent 
vision of latent spiritual meanings. But he 
would not have attempted the impossible, 
and accepting the impartial verdict which 
derives from reference to external standards, 
he would have been spared defeat where he 
believed himself to have compelled suc- 
cess. 

59 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Whitman's programme included nothing 
less than the universe. The macrocosm is 
enfolded in the microcosm. The universe 
renders itself intelligible in terms of man. 
"In the centre of all, and object of all, stands 
the Human Being." To be most compre- 
hensive in his scope, he will make the poem 
of personality; and the human being he 
knows most about is of course himself. He 
will have life at first hand. He will not 
accept old-world traditions, " imported in 
some ship," nor "poems distill'd from 
poems. " Although there are emotions com- 
mon to all mankind, yet these, in order to 
make their most intimate appeal to the in- 
dividual, must find expression freshly in the 
man's own native idiom ; for the spirit and 
the form are one, says Whitman, and "de- 
pend far more on association, identity, and 
place than is supposed." So this personal- 
ity which he employs as his symbol is to 
be set in the midst of and is to tally " the 
momentous spirit and facts of its imme- 

60 



WHITMAN'S ART 

diate days and of current America." Walt 
Whitman, in his own person and vicariously 
for all men, is the centre and the theme. 
Upon this centre converge all events, all 
consequences and effects, all currents and 
influences; from it radiate in ever-widening 
circles, dipping beyond the verge of human 
horizons and merging into infinity, all acts, 
all thoughts, all feelings, the very essences 
of all things. 

Nor did Whitman undertake his pro- 
gramme lightly. He had his deliberate 
theory as to the poetic office, and clear 
ideas as to practical method. The poet, 
according to Whitman, differs from ordin- 
ary men not in kind but in degree. "The 
others are as good as he, only he sees it 
and they do not." The poet is the An- 
swerer. He resolves all idioms and tongues 
into his own; as he translates all things 
into himself, so by and through him any 
man may translate the universe into terms 

of his own personality. 

61 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the 

tongue of you, 
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen* d. 

In the poet and the poet's experience, each 
man finds the expression of himself and 
of his own experience. The ordinary man 
deals with parts ; the poet presents the 
Whole. He is compounded of particulars, 
but he transcends particulars and becomes 
universal. He seeks to "aggregate all in 
a living principle." This principle is the 
unity that underlies variety, and it is the 
message of materials to the spirit. 

A poet in this sense Whitman aims to 
be, and the poet of America in the last 
half of the nineteenth century. Now 
America " demands a poetry that is bold, 
modern, and all-surrounding and kosmical 
as she is herself." It must, though court- 
eously, cut loose from even the greatest 
models of the past, and it must have en- 
tire faith in itself. It will inspire itself with 

science, with all present-day thought and 

62 



WHITMAN'S ART 

freedom, and it must bend its vision to- 
ward the future. Tried by his own direct 
contact with realities, the accepted poetry 
of his time seemed to Whitman to be 
hopelessly inadequate. Either its signi- 
ficance has passed with the passing of the 
transient manners and ways of thought 
which it depicted and expressed, as was 
the case with the earlier literature and later 
imitations of it; or it failed utterly to dis- 
cern and to cope with the larger realities 
which Whitman knew. In his mind, the 
breakdown of poetry in substance is asso- 
ciated with the characteristics of its form. 
Therefore he fears " grace, elegance, civil- 
ization, delicatesse, the mellow-sweet, the 
sucking of honey-juice." In opposition 
he will assert the rugged and the rude; he 
will speak a language " fann'd by the 
breath of Nature, which leaps overhead, 
cares mostly for impetus and effects. " 

A primordial task, therefore, Whitman 
proposes, truly a work of creation, as he 

63 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

launches himself upon the new world. He 
will be the inaugurator of a new-founded 
literature, not " to exhibit technical, rhyth- 
mic, or grammatical dexterity," but a litera- 
ture " underlying life, religion, consistent 
with science, handling the elements and 
forces with competent power, teaching and 
training men/' In any craft, he says, "he 
is greatest forever and ever who contrib- 
utes the greatest original practical exam- 
ple." After our excursion into programme 
and theory, the practical example now en- 
gages us as we turn to estimate results. 

Considered first of all in its merely for- 
mal aspect, " Leaves of Grass," whatever 
else it may be besides, is not to be wholly 
excluded from the category of poetry. De- 
nying himself the aid of sharply marked 
metre and the sonority and graces of 
rhyme, Whitman bases his title to the 
poetic office upon two characteristics of his 
style : these are the imaginative power of 

64 



WHITMAN'S ART 

his phrasing and his rhythm. As a pro- 
pagandist and a theorist, Whitman is inter- 
esting and significant, but not convincing 
or creative of beauty ; as with Wordsworth, 
when he is most conscious and affirmative, 
he is least a poet. But by native temper- 
ament and by chance experience of life, he 
maintained that original and fresh relation 
to things which is the making of an artist ; 
and he was gifted with an instinctive, curi- 
ously just perception of musical values 
which enabled him to achieve impassioned 
and quickening emotional expression. 

Whitman has the authentic artist's in- 
nocence of the eye. He sees all things as 
though for the first time, and he sees them 
with delighted surprise. This deliberate 
freshness of vision, attended by wonder, 
makes possible a grasp of the salient and 
the essential. From this follows the grav- 
ing epithet, cutting the image with light- 
ning-revealed distinctness; from this, the 
evocative phrase, summoning forth the 

65 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

very being of the thing, — a living spirit 
now, transcending its material embodiment, 
playing upon our spirit and quickening us 
to response and fusion. Whitman ranges 
all the way from the literal mention of 
hopelessly prosaic objects which not even 
his imagination is powerful enough to il- 
lumine, up to the ultimate sublimities of 
transfigured imagery and creative phrase. 
One is sufficiently familiar with his cata- 
loguing method. This strain and fibre in 
his verse is usually the first charge to be 
brought against him in any indictment of 
his poetry. Undoubtedly for Whitman 
himself this pell-mell of names and things 
had a certain imaginative value, as repre- 
senting the infinite diversity of the uni- 
verse. But no less undoubtedly it has not 
the same value for the reader. Art is not 
the bald reproduction of actuality. Art in- 
terprets, and makes vital what was before 
inert; it translates material into mood. In 

his uninspired moments — of which there 

66 



WHITMAN'S ART 

were many — Whitman gives us not the 
impression and spirit of chaos, its import 
for the emotions, but chaos itself, actual 
and unredeemed. Often, however, in these 
very catalogues, he lifts the single item out 
of itself, translating the object into sensa- 
tion and kindling it with the glow of his 
own feeling. 

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his fore- 
plane whistles its wild ascending lisp. 

What before we may have passed a hun- 
dred times without notice is lighted up with 
a new interest, and we get a quick sting of 
pleasure. With him we thrill in 

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, 

talk of the promenaders, 
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating 

thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the 

granite floor. 

Or that fresh keen sight of his catches a 
transient group in a vivid flash, arrests it, 
and makes it permanent because so real. 
The vividness of the image carries it to our 

67 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

own experience so that it becomes a vital 
part of us. 

The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of 

masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers 

and waist-straps, 
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell 

strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the 

alert, 
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the 

curv'd neck and the counting. 

Examples might be multiplied inde- 
finitely. These swift touches with living 
reality may or may not repay the reader 
as he pushes through the jostling crowd of 
common things. For my part, I do not tire 
of these little vignettes; in them Whitman 
gives me a new vision of the world. The 
commonplace becomes interesting after all ; 
the daily round is richer than I had sup- 
posed. Glimpses and images such as these 
are the upland levels, the wide-stretching 
plateaus, of Whitman's verse. On the 
heights he is absolute. The exaltation of 

his thought and all-fusing intensity of his 

68 



WHITMAN'S ART 

emotion compel their own supremely ade- 
quate, transfiguring expression. Analysis 
cannot here penetrate the secret of his 
alchemy. The critical faculty is annulled 
as we are caught up in this transcendent 
flight, lifted out of ourselves until we be- 
come the poet. This poetry works its own 
eternal miracle. The poet's vision is our 
vision, his mood is our mood; we are, even 
as he is, on the heights. 

Whitman had " the divine power to 
speak words." On this transfiguring en- 
ergy of his phrase he rests his first claim 
upon our attention as readers of poetry. 
Many of his lines, even whole poems, are 
mere jottings and fragments, — "glimpses 
through an interstice caught," — repro- 
ducing the inconsequence of momentary 
experience. Such as these justify them- 
selves by their vividness and their life- 
communicating quality. Yet to stop here 
is to stop at the very surface. For under- 
lying the apparently scattered members of 

'69 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

this poetry there is a penetrative and per- 
meating unity, a unity of feeling imparted 
to discrete objects and sensations by the 
temperament across which they play. The 
individual stream of consciousness flows 
on unbrokenly, though gathering into it- 
self tributary incidents, and swirling into 
eddies along its borders. " My poems," 
Whitman says in a manuscript note, 
" should be a unity, in the same sense that 
the earth is, or that a human body ... or 
that a perfect musical composition is." In 
the last clause we have the key to the sec- 
ond and larger appeal of Whitman's work 
as poetry. This is its musical quality. 

Not only are Whitman's words often un- 
surpassable for their image-making power, 
now sharply cutting, now lambent in their 
caress, effusing emotion and mood. His 
phrases are sonorous on the tongue, and 
subtly modulated, and they are distin- 
guished by a tone-color extraordinarily 
sensuous and musical. 

70 



WHITMAN'S ART 

Soothe! soothe! soothe! 

Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, 

And again another behind embracing and lapping, every 

one close, 
But my love soothes not me, not me. 

Here is the hush of sibilants recurring in 
regular measure : soothe, cloje, its, .Toother, 
embracing, .Toother. Here is the calm of 
open vowels : soothe, wvzve, behmd, em- 
bracing ; a calm broken and so intensified 
by the huddling consonants, lapping every 
one close. Then follow two lines heavy 
with the weight of the late and lagging 
moon. 

Low hangs the moon, it rose late, 

It is lagging — O I think it is heavy with love, with love. 

Here the rhythm changes ; the beat is slower 
and more prolonged. Now with crowding 
consonants, the sea breaks and gently 
spreads itself on the flow. 

O madly the sea pushes upon the land, 
With love, with love. 

Then ensue the huddle and unrest of close 

7" 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

vowels, thick-studded consonants, and 
short syllables. 

O night ! do I not see my love fluttering out among the 

breakers ? , 

What is that little black thing I see there in the white ? 



Now come the alarm and call of liquids and 
open vowels. 

Loud! loud! loud! 

Loud I call to you, my love! 

High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves, 

Surely you must know who is here, is here, 

You must know who I am, my love. 

Finally, — 

Low-hanging moon! 

What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow ? 

O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! 

O moon do not keep her from me any longer. 

Once more the sagging, weary weight of 
open vowels, and the repeated vibration and 
prolonged echo of " m " and " n " in hang- 
ing moon, brown, moon, from, any longer. 
Then the abrupt discord in the dentals, sib- 
ilants, and close vowels of dusky spot. At 

72 



WHITMAN'S ART 

last, the long cry in the repetition and the 
assonance of " the shape, the shape of my 
mate," ending in the last line with the sob 
of broken rhythm and sudden lapse. 

This mastery of musical effects is not lim- 
ited to the bar of a single phrase or to the 
turn of a sentence or brief stanza. Whit- 
man applies it to his work in its larger masses. 
Characteristically he does not use metre. I n- 
dividual lines have a certain fluid stress, like 
the emphasis given to spoken words where 
the placing of the sense to be emphasized 
coincides with natural breath-lengths. But 
the full sweep of his rhythm completes itself 
only in the larger group of the whole para- 
graph. Whitman's instinctive feeling for 
time-values helped him to the right placing 
of the stress and modulation, but his effects 
are more than merely mechanical. An emo- 
tional influence radiates from his rhythms, 
given off like an aura, and enveloping them 
with an atmosphere of mood. In achieving 
these effects Whitman transcends estab- 

73 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

lished poetic forms, and takes his clue and 
his criterion from Nature. He sees all life 
as a "procession with measured and perfect 
motion." Correspondingly, the movement 
of his verse is processional. It is "less de- 
finite form, outline, sculpture, and becomes 
vista, music, half-tints, and even less than 
half-tints." His music would compete with 
the mystic trumpeter, the wind; it would 
accord with the sweep of the plains and the 
thrust of mountain-ranges ; it would catch 
and reecho the ineffable influence of the sea. 
Traveling in his later years in Colorado, 
"hour after hour, amid all this grim yet joy- 
ous elemental abandon — this plenitude of 
material, entire absence of art, untrammel'd 
play of primitive Nature — the chasm, the 
gorge, the crystal mountain stream, repeated 
scores, hundreds of miles — the broad han- 
dling and absolute uncrampedness — the 
fantasticformsbathedintransparentbrowns, 
faint reds and grays, towering sometimes a 
thousand, sometimes two or three thousand 

74 



WHITMAN'S ART 

feet high — at their tops now and then huge 
masses pois'd, and mixing with the clouds, 
with only their outlines, hazed in misty lilac, 
visible": in the presence of this workman- 
ship transcending art, he exclaims, " I have 
found the law of my own poems !" 

Spirit that form'd this scene, 

These tumbled rock-piles grim and red, 

These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks, 

These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked fresh- 
ness, 

These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, 

I know thee, savage spirit — we have communed to- 
gether, 

Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own ; 

Was 't charged against my chants they had forgotten art ? 

To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse ? 

The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's 
grace — column and polish' d arch forgot? 

But thou that revelest here — spirit that form'd this 
scene, 

They have remember' d thee. 

Whitman's rhythms cannot be analyzed 
according to the established formulas of ver- 
sification, as pentameter, hexameter ; they 
cannot be subjected to the usual systems of 

75 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

notation, as iambic, trochaic, dactylic, ana- 
paestic. Rather they are like the rhythms we 
apprehend in natural processes : they are the 
rhythms of shifting cloud-forms or of the 
unresting but measured roll of the sea ; they 
push forward, recoil, and recur like the in- 
terweaving of tree-branches, throwing out 
lateral clusters of twigs and leaves. His 
rhythms "show the free growth of met- 
rical laws " ; they bud loosely, but as unerr- 
ingly as "lilacs and roses on a bush"; and 
again, they take shapes as compact as "the 
shapes of chestnuts and oranges and melons 
and pears." By virtue of their very elusive- 
ness they give off an emotional quality shed 
like a "perfume impalpable to form." 

It is certain that Whitman has caught 
and registered something of the sinuous, 
mighty pulse of Nature. In art, the near- 
est parallel of his work is found not in other 
poetry but in music. The structure of his 
poems — the statement of theme and of 
contrasted or subsidiary themes, the ampli- 

76 



WHITMAN'S ART 

fication, the recurrence with modih* cation, 
the inner progress, now delayed by lateral 
expression, now gathering itself for a new 
push forward, but certain to the end, all 
embodied in appropriate rhythms, evoking 
mood — is symphonic in plan, variety, 
and scope. Or again, he composes on the 
model of recitative and aria, as in Italian 
opera, which he knew so well. Although his 
rhythms are large and free, leaving " dim 
escapes and outlets," his poetry does not 
lack a firm underlying structure and closely 
woven texture of thought. His verses are 
not mere succession, they are develop- 
ment. Formal logic Whitman distrusted : 
" the damp of the night drives deeper into 
my soul." But his poems, from the first 
germinal inception in his mind to their final 
perfect flower of phrase and rhythm, are 
wrought out with a sure, inevitable logic 
of thought and emotion which matches 
the inevitableness of Nature's logic in the 
growth and final form of tree or vine. Con- 

77 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

trasted with this free but unerring organic 
growth, traditional verse-forms are me- 
chanical and cold: the crystal rigidity of 
the sonnet, the vain intricacy of ballade and 
villanelle and rondeau, is but gem-cutting. 
With such verbal dexterity " Leaves of 
Grass " has nothing in common. In nim- 
bleness of foot and deft jugglery of rhyme, 
any hundred of verse-makers can outstrip 
this poet. Tried by the movements and 
ways of Nature and by the great things in 
music, Whitman shows himself to be a 
true master of form. 

"Much is said, among artists, of c the 
grand style/ as if it were a thing by itself. 
When a man, artist or whoever, has health, 
pride, acuteness, noble aspirations, he has 
the motive elements of the grandest style. 
The rest is but manipulation (yet that is 
no small matter). " 

Here is a clue to another aspect of Whit- 
man's work, — his craftsmanship and tech- 

78 



WHITMAN'S ART 

nique. He was not so innocent as many 
have supposed him of all that is involved 
in " manipulation. " Seemingly artless and 
accidental, Whitman was an artist of high- 
est power and a consummate craftsman. 
To cite a specimen instance of Whitman 
criticism, a recent writer informs us that his 
poetical method was "the product of his 
impatience," and he adds : " If this imputes 
to him some fraudulency as well as much 
laziness and conceit, this cannot be helped." 
As against such ignorant and reckless or 
malicious assertions as this, Whitman's 
own note-books and papers show the ex- 
treme deliberateness and prodigious pains 
with which he wrote. No detail was too 
small to call for his utmost effort to be ac- 
curate. Among his papers is a pencil-draw- 
ing of a full-rigged ship, with the sails, 
spars, and ropes all named; it was evidently 
furnished him at his request by some one 
who was an authority on the subject: this 
served as the chart for his little poem, 

79 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

"Old Age's Ships and Crafty Death's." 
He studied his materials at first hand, and 
he learned from the workman himself the 
technical terminology of his trade. In the 
volume of " Notes and Fragments " are 
hundreds of jottings and memoranda of 
details to be worked into his poems. He 
has notes of a visit to a forge in the 
Adirondacks, which he condensed into two 
lines of the " Song for Occupations." 
Another is the record of a talk with an old 
whaleman : from him Whitman learned that 
the whale has but one calf at a birth. In 
the 1855 and 1856 editions of "Leaves of 
Grass," he had a line, " Where the she-whale 
swims with her calves." In the i860 edi- 
tion this is changed to read, "Where the 
she-whale swims with her calf." The very 
trivialness of the change is significant; for 
this is the man who was lazy and impatient ! 
Another note runs: "Whole Poem. 
Poem of Insects. Get from Mr. Arkhurst 

the names of all insects — interweave a train 

80 



WHITMAN'S ART 

of thoughts suitable — also trains of words." 
In the search for words he was untiring. 
In page after page of books in his posses- 
sion, single words are underscored in pencil, 
noted for his own future use. His mind, 
more active than people realized in this big, 
easy-going man, was constantly on the alert. 
He carried with him always some scrap of 
paper, an old envelope, or odd bits pinned 
together; anywhere and everywhere, at his 
carpentering, on ferry-boats or the tops of 
omnibuses, at the theatre, down by the sea- 
shore, in the war hospitals, or basking in 
the sunshine by a creek, wherever he was, 
he made endless jottings and notes. These 
were carefully worked over, declaimed, 
weighed, revised, readjusted, before they 
were finally incorporated into a poem. His 
poetry was no chance of hit or miss. As 
his phrases were not the ejaculations of a 
fine frenzy, but were the final patient selec- 
tion out of many that might just do, so the 

poem as a whole was definitely conceived 

81 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

and deliberately planned. Here is a scheme 
outlined in a fragment. 

" Poem (idea), ' To struggle is not to suffer.' 

" Bold and strong invocation of suffering — to 
try how much one can stand. 

" Overture — a long list of words — the senti- 
ment of suffering, oppression, despair, anguish. 

" Collect (rapidly present) terrible scenes of 
suffering. 

" c Then man is a God/ Then he walks over 
all." 

After a poem was more or less in shape, 
it was subjected, as his manuscripts abund- 
antly show, to numerous and thorough- 
going revisions before it was admitted to 
his book ; and even there, as " Leaves of 
Grass " went through successive editions, 
he made many changes and improvements. 
In a manuscript note for his own guidance 
he wrote : — 

" In future ' Leaves of Grass/ Be more severe 
with the final revision of the poem, nothing will 
do, not one word or sentence, that is not perfectly 

82 



WHITMAN'S ART 

clear — with positive purpose — harmony with 
the name, nature, drift of the poem. Also no orna- 
ments, especially no ornamental adjectives, unless 
they have come molten hot, and imperiously 
prove themselves. No ornamental similes at all — 
not one : perfect transparent clearness, sanity and 
health are wanted — that is the divine style — O 
if it can be attained — " 

Whitman's departure from the estab- 
lished forms of poetry, therefore, was not 
due to fraudulency or laziness, in spite of 
those who tell us glibly that he did not 
" even take the trouble to write prose/' 
Nor was it effected in any spirit of license. 
More than most versifiers, Whitman recog- 
nized the necessity of law. The difference 
is that he goes deeper than most, in per- 
ceiving that the true law of art is obedience, 
not to external form, but to inner essential 
needs. As a tree grows and takes its per- 
fect shape and beauty in response to the 
law of its own being, so poetry is not made 
but grows ; it develops out of its own inner 

83 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

necessity, in so far as the poet is not med- 
dlesome but consents to be " the free chan- 
nel of himself." But as a tree, in the ex- 
pression of its being, is subjected to the 
forces and conditions of the materials out 
of which it builds itself, so poetry also accepts 
the laws and conditions of its nature. Art is 
a spirit ; technique — the processes by which 
art is given bodily form — employs materi- 
als. Art, therefore, in the conscious and 
material elements of it, is based on science. 

" Exact science," says Whitman, " and its 
practical movements are no checks on the greatest 
poet, but always his encouragement and support. 
. . . The sailor and traveler — the anatomist, 
chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spir- 
itualist, mathematician, historian, and lexico- 
grapher, are not poets, but they are the lawgivers 
of poets, and their construction underlies the 
structure of every perfect poem." Again he says, 
u The work of the poet is as deep as the astro- 
nomer's or engineer's, and his art is also as far- 
fetch'd." 

84 



WHITMAN'S ART 

In his very recognition and acceptance of 
the laws of his art, the poet shows himself 
master, and then he bends the laws to his 
own will. "A great poet is followed by- 
laws — they conform to him.*' True art is 
not conformity, but mastery. 

Whitman did not, as some have fancied, 
cultivate eccentricity for its own sake. His 
break with traditional forms and the ad- 
mitted canons of literature was not due to 
caprice or a desire for singularity. It was 
inevitable ; and the differences which dis- 
tinguish his work from other poetry follow 
necessarily from his point of view, his aims, 
and his choice and use of his material and 
medium. "As I have lived/' he says, "in 
fresh lands, inchoate, and in a revolution- 
ary age, future-founding, I have felt to 
identify the points of that age, these lands, 
in my recitatives, altogether in my own way. 
Thus my form has strictly grown from my 
purports and facts, and is the analogy of 
them." He will avoid all that is remote, 

85 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

imported, traditional, and derived ; he be- 
gins at the beginning. He will make his 
poems in " the spirit that comes from the 
contact with real things themselves," as 
distinct from " the study of pictures of 
things " ; and he will be " faithful to the 
perfect likelihoods of Nature." His ulti- 
mate ideal of style is simplicity. "To speak 
in literature with the perfect rectitude and 
insouciance of the movements of animals, 
and the unimpeachableness of the senti- 
ment of trees in the woods and grass by the 
roadside, is the flawless triumph of art." 
By such untrammeled intimacy with Na- 
ture and absorption of her spirit, and by 
such immediate simplicity of diction, the 
poet achieves originality. Originality is not 
a mechanical trick of speech, nor does it 
reside in external form. It is born of the 
spirit, and it must show itself " in new com- 
binations and new meanings where there 
was before thought no greatness. The style 

of expression must be carefully purged of 

86 



WHITMAN'S ART 

anything striking or dazzling or ornamental 
— and with great severity precluded from 
all that is eccentric." In the result Whit- 
man is truly original, — a new personality 
and a new voice in literature. 

Whitman was a pioneer and had his work 
to do for himself. With so vast a pro- 
gramme, with forms to be invented, and 
with so much crude material to be fused, it 
is not to be supposed that he maintains 
a level or that he is invariably beautiful 
or convincing. He undertook too much. 
Neither he nor his public was ripe for the 
achievement. In spite of his heroic effort 
and limitless good-will, his material was 
still too stubborn to yield wholly to such 
transmuting energy as his alchemy could 
command. He might have cast away the 
dross and left the gold, but this he was 
unwilling to do. Instead, he cheerfully pro- 
claimed the dross to be as good as gold, 
and not every reader agrees with him. The 

87 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

human vision is not yet divine vision; and 
man's mind has not yet the power to grasp 
the Whole, in which opposites are recon- 
ciled. Good and evil are still set in conflict ; 
and we still distinguish between the excel- 
lent and the inferior. So it is evident to any 
reader of Whitman that much of his work 
is mistaken in theory and unredeemed in 
practice. Even his admirers recognize this 
element, and this much they freely concede 
to critics in the opposite camp. To be sure, 
those who hold Whitman as primarily a 
prophet are not greatly troubled by it, for 
they value him for the content of his 
message, with less regard to its form. But 
those who consider him as at his best a poet 
of the highest order are not blind to this 
admixture in his work of the prosaic and 
the bizarre. When Stevenson remarks that 
"the word c hatter' cannot be used seri- 
ously in emotional verse," most of us are 
quite ready to agree with him. We are dis- 
posed to feel that in so far as Whitman was 

88 



WHITMAN'S ART 

unable or unwilling to be his own critic and 
editor, in so far as he failed to select and to 
reject, so far he failed of being an artist. As 
it happens. Whitman was an extraordinarily 
shrewd and penetrating literary critic, as 
many passages in his prose-writings abund- 
antly prove. Setting aside the question of 
Whitman's ability in the matter, our atti- 
tude toward cc Leaves of Grass," with our 
consequent estimate of it, depends upon 
whether we regard the book from the poet's 
point of view or our own. Doubtless, if 
Whitman had done this or had not done 
that, it would have pleased you or me better. 
But after all the question is, what his work 
finally means to us on the basis of what it 
pleased Whitman actually to do. He ac- 
cepted in himself the full responsibility for 
his performance in its entirety; and we may 
take him as he is, without speculation as to 
what he might have been if only he had 
been something else. 

Taking Whitman as he is, then, we per- 

89 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ceive that " Leaves of Grass " is a growth, 
the slow unfolding through the years of the 
central germinal thought, conceived in its 
total unity in the beginning, and finding 
lateral and upward expression, leaf upon 
leaf, in due succession. Many of the single 
poems are quite complete in themselves ; 
and these successive expressions may be 
received in their momentary completeness; 
as such, they are satisfying, often surpass- 
ingly beautiful. The poem entitled "Re- 
conciliation," for example, may be read by 
itself to powerful effect ; yet it acquires 
infinitely fuller meaning if set in its place 
in the whole series of " Drum Taps." Just 
so, we miss the larger significance of Whit- 
man's book if we fail to realize that it is 
not a mere aggregate of particulars, or ac- 
cidental, loose accretion of random ideas. 
" Leaves of Grass " is not, as some critics 
would have us believe, a scrap-book or 
a rag-bag, into which Whitman tossed his 

odds and ends of thoughts and phrases, 

90 



WHITMAN'S ART 

which he did not trouble himself to classify 
and to elaborate coherently. " Leaves of 
Grass" is organic, and a whole; its parts 
are held together in vital interrelation; and 
it is to be received and comprehended only 
in its entirety. The poet aims to figure forth 
the eternal flux of things, the wonderful 
diversity of life, and the greater wonder of 
the unity underlying it. His style, beyond 
any other characteristic of it, is fluid ; and 
his poems are crowded with jostling, heter- 
ogeneous materials and images. Yet em- 
braced by the cosmic sweep of his absorbing 
and interpreting personality, all things fall 
naturally into place, and diversity is fused 
into unity. Leaves of grass : one spirit, 
many manifestations. As in Nature, so in 
this poetry, not all is flower and fruit; 
much is shaggy bark, and knotted, tough- 
fibred wood. There are passages of su- 
preme poetry, unmatchable for sublimity 
of thought and compelling beauty of phrase. 
Mingled with them are reaches of prose, 

9 1 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

— prose that is incoherent in structure, 
commonplace in wording, and banal in 
thought. But it is not upon a part, how- 
ever triumphant the part may be, that 
Whitman rests his case. He would not 
have us cull the blossoms, to deck a room 
for a day ; nor try to skip from peak to 
peak in Olympian disdain. We leave the 
blossoms out of doors, and love the tree, 
which will drop fruit in its own time. We 
possess the landscape, — morasses and 
tangled lowlands, no less than the mount- 
ain-tops. In such a survey, necessarily we 
take the bad with the good, the nonsense 
with the divine sense, the banal with the 
sublime. We accept the " hatter," " Cudge 
that hoes in the sugar-field," " Kanuck," 
and "Tuckahoe "; and we give thanks for 
" the light that wraps me in delicate equable 
showers," for "the sun falling around a 
helpless thing," and for "the huge and 
thoughtful night." We take the cosmos 

as we find it, and try, with such grace as 

92 



WHITMAN'S ART 

we can command, to make the necessary- 
adjustments. The recompense is certain 
and enough. 

" A stretch of interminable white-brown sand, 
hard and smooth and broad, with the ocean per- 
petually, grandly, rolling in upon it, with slow- 
measured sweep, with rustle and hiss and foam, 
and many a thump as of low bass-drums." 

This scene,Whitman says, though wholly- 
imaginary, for years at intervals came up 
before him ; it entered largely into his prac- 
tical life, and into his writings to shape and 
color them. The picture is a symbol of 
" Leaves of Grass." 

Whitman's poetry is like the sea. It has 
the same amplitude and power> the same 
unbridled swing, the same variety and unity- 
in- variety; it is spacious and composite; it 
has the sea's movement and stir, its imme- 
diacy and its suggestions of infinity beyond. 
We plunge into it, to encounter a shock ; 
the first recoil is followed by a sense of 

93 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

exhilaration and of escape out of cramping 
manners and dress into the nakedness of 
a wider, bigger element. The sea was for 
Whitman the symbol of the cosmos, and 
the criterion by which to test reality. 

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards, 

Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in 
perfect rhyme, delight of singers; 

These, these, O sea, all these I *d gladly barter, 

Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me 
transfer, 

Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse, 

And leave its odor there. 

The impression of Whitman's poetry in 
the large is vastness and freedom. It is es- 
sentially a poetry of out-of-doors. His per- 
formance can " face the open fields and the 
sea-side"; it meets "the broadcast doings 
of the day and night." Whitman gets his 
inspiration from Nature and natural men. 
He prefers the companionship of mechan- 
ics, boatmen, farmers, to the society of 
drawing-rooms and libraries. Not parts 

94 



WHITMAN'S ART 

of men but whole men, simplicity, candor, 
liberality, things as God made them, are 
what he likes. He loves movement and 
masses and variety and space. The sea held 
him by its illimitableness ; and great cities 
too, like Brooklyn and New York, drew 
him powerfully by their sheer immensity 
of scale. Thus he says : — 

" The splendor, picturesqueness, and oceanic 
amplitude and rush of these great cities, the un- 
surpass'd situation, rivers and bay, sparkling sea- 
tides, costly and lofty new buildings, facades of 
marble and iron, of original grandeur and ele- 
gance of design, with the masses of gay color, 
the preponderance of white and blue, the flags 
flying, the endless ships, the tumultuous streets, 
Broadway, the heavy, low, musical roar, hardly 
ever intermitted, even at night ; the jobbers' 
houses, the rich shops, the wharves, the great 
Central Park, and the Brooklyn Park of hills (as 
I wander among them this beautiful fall weather, 
musing, watching, absorbing) — the assemblages 
of the citizens in their groups, conversations, 

95 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

trades, evening amusements, or along the by- 
quarters — these, I say, and the like of these, 
completely satisfy my senses of power, fulness, 
motion, &c, and give me through such senses 
and appetites, and through my aesthetic con- 
science, a continued exaltation and absolute ful- 
filment." 

. To match the infinitely shifting diversity 
of things, which Whitman feels so vividly, 
his poetic form is composite and indeter- 
minate. It has " the loose-clear-crowded- 
ness" of the night sky. The peculiar value 
of this form is suggestiveness. His pur- 
poses are as obvious and as intricate as 
Nature's are. Superficially "Leaves of 
Grass" is a maze of contradictions, though 
the underlying unity is finally there. So, 
in spite of his manifest assertiveness and 
loud voice, Whitman is curiously reticent; 
elusive and bafHing he is, so that we never 
quite fathom his ultimate reserve. We sound 
him again and again and yet again, and do 
not touch bottom. There are "divine things 

96 



WHITMAN'S ART 

well envelop'd." Where other poetry is 
static, Whitman is dynamic. It has seemed 
to me that perhaps the most perfect little 
poem in English is Keats' s cc Ode on a Gre- 
cian Urn." Here content is absolutely 
matched by form ; here thought and emo- 
tion and the manner of expression are in 
exquisite equilibrium. But the equilibrium 
is stable. I read the Ode and find it super- 
latively beautiful ; I read it again and find 
it just as beautiful, but not more so : it is 
complete, — here, now, once, and for all 
time. The very perfection of it is its lim- 
itation. I read Whitman, and he seems to 
me wonderful ; I read him again, and he 
seems more wonderful, ever more and 
more wonderful, disclosing new wonder 
and beauty without end. Keats's Ode is a 
supreme triumph of art. Whitman chal- 
lenges comparison with Nature. His po- 
etry is compounded of " influences that 
make up, in their limitless field, that peren- 
nial health-action of the air we call the 

97 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

weather — an infinite number of currents 
and forces, and contributions, and temper- 
atures, and cross-purposes, whose ceaseless 
play of counterpart upon counterpart brings 
constant restoration and vitality." Hence 
the irresistibly tonic quality of this poetry, 
its power to stimulate and to supply. 

The wide scope and the free form of 
Whitman's work permit the play of many 
purposes and the inclusion of diverse ma- 
terials. In " Leaves of Grass," taken in its 
entirety, we may distinguish three elements. 
The first is prose, — a commonplaceness of 
thought, the use of familiar things in all their 
unrelieved familiarity, and a literalness of 
phrasing; this element is the bed-soil of 
his verse. The second element is the direct 
statement of ideas ; under this head we have 
his championship of Democracy and his ag- 
gressive glorification of <f these States," his 
critical propaganda, with his programme for 
a new order of literature, and his philosophic 
beliefs. An example of this strain is, — 

98 



WHITMAN'S ART 

Did we think victory great ? 

So it is — but now it seems to me, when it cannot be 

help'd, that defeat is great, 
And that death and dismay are great. 

Such sentences are sown broadcast through- 
out the " Leaves." Often there is literary 
distinction in the phrasing, but the manner 
does not differ from the manner of a prose 
essay. Whitman's attitude here is intellect- 
ual rather than emotional ; his method is as- 
sertion. We agree with him or disagree, as 
the case may be. If we do not accept his dic- 
tum, he does not persuade us in spite of our- 
selves by any beauty of image ; he does not 
kindle us with any glow of emotion. The 
ideas are valued for themselves, without re- 
gard to their form. This element is the stalk 
and tough fibre of his verse. The third ele- 
ment, redeeming the whole and making it 
glorious, is the radiant flower and perfect 
fruit: this is his poetry. Whitman himself 
knows as well as another that " real mate- 
rials do not become real until touched by 

99 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

emotions, the mind/' In his passages of true 
poetry, — and they compensate for all the 
rest, — ideas are kindled by feeling and 
lighted by imagination. Here content is 
not to be disengaged from the form. This 
poetry has the fusing and transfiguring 
power that is characteristic of all great art. 
Some of the sources of this power I have 
tried to indicate. In the result it makes its 
way, triumphantly, supremely. 

Such are the currents of energy that pulse 
through the oceanic tides of Whitman's 
verse. There are cross-currents and contra- 
dictory forces. To be caught and swept 
along by a single current is to be carried 
out of our course. If we are to fare with 
Whitman from port to port, from birth 
through life to death and beyond, we must 
keep our bearings. So " Leaves of Grass " 
is to be truly apprehended and appreciated 
only in its entirety ; the part is to be referred 
to the whole. " I am large ; I contain multi- 
tudes." Our enjoyment of Whitman is the 

IOO 



WHITMAN'S ART 

measure of our own capacity. Like the sea's 
horizon, his bounds are traced by the range 
of our own vision. The ocean's verge ad- 
vances ever before us with our progress ; and 
there is ever an infinite beyond. 

The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck 
beneath our feet, 

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless mo- 
tion, 

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast sug- 
gestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing 
syllables, 

The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the mel- 
ancholy rhythm, 

The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all 
here, 

And this is ocean's poem. 



Ill 

THE HUMAN APPEAL 

Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of 
the tenderest lover, 

The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his 
lover was fondest, 

Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measure- 
less ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd 
it forth. 

A tangled growth from wide fields, — 
tough-fibred strands, gleaming in the 
sun, bending to the sweep of winds, toss- 
ing and falling in variant rhythm like waves 
over the sea, — this is the symbol and ex- 
pression of a vast and elemental personality. 
The impression is one of expanse and free- 
dom, of infinite complexity enfolded within 
a dominant unity. There are shifting vistas 
and far horizons ; many crests are salient, 
flashing light ; with the bigness and divers- 
ity, there is also a wonderful sense of inti- 

I02 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

macy. Somewhere within, at the very centre, 
quickens a compelling force, exerting an 
irresistible attraction. The appeal is as 
sovereign as it is varied. Many phases, one 
essence. At the heart of it is power. 

The secret of Whitman's power does not 
reside in his craftsmanship. His poetry 
holds for its readers the delight which art 
brings, in satisfaction of the aesthetic sense. 
But his art alone does not exhaust his signi- 
ficance. His verses are musical with subtle 
rhythms and with melodies cunningly 
wrought ; woven of colored words and lum- 
inous images, they fill the eye like land- 
scape, and move in multiform procession 
like the pageant of the day and night. But 
however his technique may be character- 
ized, it is enough for Whitman that his art 
is adequate for his purpose. By means of 
it he communicates himself. His purpose 
is to establish between himself and his 
readers an immediately personal relation, so 
that they may share with him his experi- 

103 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ence of life. He is not satisfied, therefore, 
merely to create beautiful forms. Truly he 
is not proud of his songs, but of the meas- 
ureless ocean of love within him. In effect 
his art carries beyond itself. " No one," he 
says, " will get at my verses who insists upon 
viewing them as a literary performance, or 
attempt at such performance, or as aiming 
mainly toward art or aestheticism." The 
secret of his power lies in the man. 

But Whitman's power is not wholly of 
himself. No one ever gave more freely than 
Whitman gives, scattering with lavish hand 
all that he receives. The wealth of his 
personality is immense. Great currents of 
energy and love flow from him and prevail, 
like the slow, sure, vitalizing forces of the 
earth ; they envelop, attract, and quicken 
all things in the contact. But these influ- 
ences do not originate in him. The man 
himself is not the source, but the appoint- 
ed channel of currents that are universal. 

Whitman holds his powerful, responding 

104 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

personality as it were in trust, for service 
in a cause. At the very inception of his 
great undertaking, before he sets himself 
definitely to the composition of " Leaves 
of Grass," there is granted to him an in- 
sight into the meaning of things. He is 
vouchsafed a vision of God, and there is 
revealed to him in awe and splendor the 
divine purpose in the world. Apprehend- 
ing now the universal laws and resting upon 
them, he establishes himself a centre in re- 
lation to the whole of life. Identifying him- 
self with Nature's processes, as one of them, 
he becomes an instrument. The great ani- 
mating spirit of the universe works through 
him as it works through skies, through 
spreading landscapes and the myriad life 
that peoples them, through seas and moun- 
tains, through rocks and trees and the curl- 
ing grass. He sees in himself and in them 
"the same old law." Whitman mingles 
with the crowd as few men have mingled. 
But the reason why his gift is so precious 

105 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

and so potent is because he draws upon 
the universal source. Before he gives, he 
finds himself. "Will you seek afar off? 
you surely come back at last." He is not 
dispersed and lost in "countless masses of 
adjustments. " The truth is not out there, 
but in one's self. But the self is truly pos- 
sessed only as it is merged again in uni- 
versal ends. So it is that in fullest and 
highest service of the cause, he permits 
" to speak at every hazard Nature without 
check with original energy." His whole 
being, every wave of impression and emo- 
tion, every act, is authenticated with the 
seal of Nature. When he speaks, the con- 
verging authority of the universe weights 
his words. Nature has chosen him for her 
prophet, and she fashioned him to the work. 

Immense have been the preparations for me, 
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me. 

All forces have been steadily employ' d to complete 

and delight me, 
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. 

1 06 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

Whitman is a man of quite exceptional en- 
dowment. His whole make-up, physical, 
mental, and emotional, is a fortunate gift, 
— a temperament formed to be played 
upon by the throbbing influences of things, 
and to vibrate responsively in rhythm and 
happy accord. His physical senses are ex- 
traordinarily acute; and this acuteness of 
sense deepens into a sensibility, a refine- 
ment of perception and exquisiteness of 
feeling, uncommon with a man of such 
superb bodily health. This sensibility, 
however, does not diffuse itself and spend 
its force in vague, unregulated emotion. 
His sensations are controlled, his emotion 
is mastered and directed, by his triumphant 
powers of mind. He is able everywhere 
and always to make life count. Indif- 
ferent which chance happens, he follows 
where the way leads. Unpremeditated and 
undesigned things come to him haphaz- 
ard. With sublime faith he drifts. But this 

random contact with the world he shapes 

107 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

to unified experience, ever widening, ever 
deepening, and profoundly consistent with 
itself. The chaos of momentary living 
does not overwhelm him : at any point he 
can turn and say, This is life. He sees it 
as a whole, and he finds a meaning for it. 
Himself eternally and unshakably greater 
than what happens to him, he masters life. 
This unified experience he is able to record 
and to communicate. So the man becomes 
a poet. 

Whitman is the poet of health and the 
joy of health. As he defines it in retro- 
spect, he sees that his purpose has been 
" to formulate a poem whose every thought 
or fact should directly or indirectly be or 
connive at an implicit belief in the wisdom, 
health, mystery, beauty of every process, 
every concrete object, every human or 
other existence, not only consider'd from 
the point of view of all, but of each. " His 
own health, up to the prostration that fol- 
lowed the superhuman strain of the War, 

108 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

was perfect ; when his bodily strength was 
finally broken, he still kept his power and 
unconquerable cheerfulness of mind and 
his sweet sanity of spirit. Undoubtedly 
the basis of Whitman's attitude toward 
life, and in part the secret of his magnet- 
ism, is his physical equipment. Immediate 
contact with things, so keen and so finely 
attuned are his senses, is inexhaustible de- 
light. The air tastes good to his palate. 
He thrills to the float and odor of hair, 
and he discriminates the exquisite smell of 
the earth at daybreak, and all through the 
forenoon. He hears the bustle of growing 
wheat, and the labial gossip of night, sibi- 
lant chorals; the moon descends the steeps 
of the soughing twilight. To the sense of 
touch he is peculiarly responsive. 

I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass 

or stop, 
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through 

me, 
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am 

happy. 

109 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

He reaches to the leafy lips of white, sweet- 
scented roses and to the polished breasts 
of melons. " Press close magnetic nourish- 
ing night ! " he cries ; and to the sea he 
calls, — 

Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, 
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. 

On this count alone, — though there are 
other reasons as well, — it is easy to un- 
derstand Whitman's glorification of the 
body. Theoretically, as one clause of his 
philosophic programme, he holds the body 
to be sacred ; for it is the expression of the 
soul and the necessary condition of finite 
existence. But he celebrates the body also 
for the joy he has in it. For him, as for all 
things in Nature, health is happiness. In 
this respect, therefore, Whitman is neither 
indecent nor immodest. All natural func- 
tions are to him equally beautiful and 
sweet. Seeking to come as close to Na- 
ture as he can, when occasion offers, he 
gloriously divests himself, and becomes 

I IO 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

"undisguised and naked." In a secluded 
nook along Timber Creek he basks in ab- 
original directness in the beneficent sun ; 
and up and down the lonely shores of 
Long Island his bared body defies the 
wind and the sea. In this way, as he says, 
somehow he seems to get identity with 
each and everything around him, in its 
condition. And he adds^ — 

" Perhaps the inner never-lost rapport we hold 
with earth, light, air, trees, &c, is not to be re- 
alized through eyes and mind only, but through 
the whole corporeal body. . . . Perhaps indeed 
he or she to whom the free exhilarating extasy 
of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible 
(and how many thousands there are !) has not 
really known what purity is — nor what faith 
or art or health really is." 

This nakedness in Nature is for Whit- 
man a delicious primal fact. He absorbs 
the cosmos veritably through his pores, 
and in turn the magnetic currents of the 
earth radiate from him as from a centre. 

m 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

But it is a symbol as well. It is expressive 
of the original and unmediated relation of 
each individual to his world. " Undrape ! " 
is Whitman's call to the body. Let life 
flow in unhindered. But not for the body's 
sake alone. The senses are the gateway to 
the soul. 

Nature and natural things! In this inti- 
mate, fresh, delighted contact with out-of- 
doors. Whitman learns the secret of life. 
The issue is happiness. His attitude to- 
ward the world is less a creed or reasoned 
conviction than it is the inevitable reaction 
of his temperament. His regnant happi- 
ness is primarily natural and instinctive; 
his relation to life follows upon the kind 
of man he is. In so far as he has a philo- 
sophy, it is a supreme acceptance of things 
as they are. To the reception of life he 
brings an immense capacity for joy. Be- 
yond most men he has a gift for being 
pleased. " Wherever I have been, I have 
charged myself with contentment and tri- 

I I 2 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

umph/' This dominant happiness he finds 
in his sense of vital kinship with all things. 
He is sublimely at home in the universe. 
Vividly and immediately he feels and prac- 
tically knows Cf the harmony of things with 
man." Where ordinarily in one's life one 
is conscious only of separateness and di- 
vision, holding the external world and its 
assaults and impacts to be irreconcilably 
at war with one's own individuality, Whit- 
man on the contrary feels that he is a nec- 
essary and living part of the cosmic whole. 
In terms of actual experience he realizes 

Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next, 
Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all. 

Were it not for this sense of kinship with 
it all, the vastness and the beauty of it 
would overwhelm him, but he confronts 
all the shows he sees out of the stronger 
wealth of himself. 

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would 

kill me, 
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. 

"3 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Whitman feels himself coextensive with 
the universe. If we fail to see the world 
as beautiful in its every aspect and detail, 
it is only because of our consciousness of 
separateness : we think that Nature is dif- 
ferent from us and hostile to us. The big 
things are too big for us and disquiet us with 
the unwilling realization of our own little- 
ness ; and the little things are discordant, 
for we cannot fit them into our experience. 
Hence the blindness and the pain. But 
Whitman finds only happiness, for he has 
the clef which resolves all discords into 
harmony. Because he makes common 
cause with Nature, because he too is a 
channel of cosmic influences, he discovers 
a clue to the eternal meanings. In his union 
with other parts is revealed the unity of the 
whole ; his adjustment to the world-order 
and his happiness therein are the proof of 
the ultimate Tightness of all things, each in 
its own place. 

Whitman has in himself the instinctive 
n 4 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

and absolute Tightness of all natural things. 
His equilibrium is perfect. At the same 
time that he is able to give himself freely, 
yet without loss, he becomes also a centre 
of attraction for all that is natural and genu- 
ine. Out of the abundance of the universal 
wealth of which he is the channel and in- 
strument, he lavishes himself upon all, and 
just as inevitably they are drawn to him in 
return. " These tend inward to me, and 
I tend outward to them." He convinces 
by his presence. As unconsciously as one 
breathes, he absorbs all things into himself, 
and every sentient being that comes within 
his range submits to the gentle compulsion 
of his personality. He spends whole morn- 
ings in bright summer weather, watching 
the butterflies skimming, dipping, oscillat- 
ing, circling, mounting, "holding a revel, 
a gyration-dance or butterfly good-time. " 
He makes friends with them. " I have one 
big and handsome moth down here, knows 

and comes to me, likes me to hold him up 

115 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

on my extended hand." Another time up 
along the Hudson, he falls in with a her- 
mit. " I first met him once or twice on the 
road, and pass'd the time of day, with some 
small talk ; then, the third time, he ask'd 
me to go along a bit and rest in his hut 
(an almost unprecedented compliment, as 
I heard from others afterwards)." As he 
is sitting in Central Park, looking on at 
the varied endless show, a policeman comes 
over and stands near him. "We grow quite 
friendly and chatty forthwith." He tells 
Whitman, in answer to his questions, all 
about the life of a New York park-police- 
man, the pay, the hours, the duties. In 
noting the incident he makes this comment : 

u Few appreciate, I have often thought, the 
Ulyssean capacity, derring-do, quick readiness 
in emergencies, practicality, unwitting devotion 
and heroism, among our American young men 
and working-people — the firemen, the railroad 
employes, the steamer and ferry men, the police, 
the conductors and drivers — the whole splen- 
did average of native stock, city and country." 

116 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

Ever the most precious in the common ! 
It is always this element of the natural 
that Whitman represents in himself and 
that he discerns and prizes in others. If 
Whitman discriminates at all in the out- 
pouring of his sympathy, it is in favor of 
the common people. Nature is the great 
Mother, and the source of all that is best 
in life. So Whitman has a special love for 
the common people, for they are closest 
to the earth : there is less in the way be- 
tween them and reality, and they are more 
likely to be and to express what Nature 
intends. It is in this spirit that Whitman 
thinks he could turn and live with the 
animals, they are so self-contained. He 
goes freely with "powerful, uneducated 
persons," not because they are uneducated, 
but because they are powerful, and because 
their power is not suppressed and nullified 
by the restraints which a formal training 
tends to impose. The issue at stake, how- 
ever, is not this or that external condition 

117 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

of life, but sincerity, — being honestly and 
frankly, for better or worse, one's self. The 
distinction is not one of class or station, 
but inheres in the man himself. 

Because of his passion for the natural and 
the real, Whitman seems for the moment 
unable to include within his sympathy the 
indoor, and from his point of view artificial, 
products of civilization and culture. He en- 
folds with a boundless love the outcast, the 
despised, the felon ; for, as himself a child 
of generous, tolerant Nature, he feels that 
he is of them and belongs to them. " Hence- 
forth I will not deny them, for how can I 
deny myself? " But it is hard for him sym- 
pathetically to justify in the scheme of things 
those who themselves think they need no 
justification. Even for these, however, he 
has no condemnation, but only pity. For he 
regards their mere culture and consequent 
self-sufficiency as a barrier which separates 
them from the best that life might otherwise 

hold for them. 

118 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, 

scholarships, and the like ; 
(To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away 

from them, except as it results to their bodies 

and souls, 

And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly 

the true realities of life, and go toward false 

realities, 
And often to me they are alive after what custom has 

served them, but nothing more, 
And often tome they are sad, hasty, un waked somnam- 

bules walking the dusk.) 

Not only do such external and mechanical 

acquisitions cut men off from the bigger 

things, from sympathy that springs out of 

the heart, from love and the happiness that 

comes with the gift of one's self; Whitman 

feels keenly the utter inadequacy of mere 

learning to help men to the truths which he 

himself has divined so deeply through love, 

the truths which Nature would teach, if only 

men would surrender to her and let her work 

in them in her own way. Hearing the learned 

astronomer, with his proofs and figures and 

119 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

charts and diagrams, unaccountably he be- 
came " tired and sick/* and rising and glid- 
ing out, he wandered off by himself — 

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. 

In the company of conventional and indoor 
people Whitman was confessedly less at ease 
than in the open, in so far as suited his free- 
dom of movement and expression. But he 
was great enough to discern the good and 
true qualities latent in them, however much 
these were overlaid by broadcloth and. 
trimmed to the mode. " The little plentiful 
mannikins skipping around in collars and 
taird coats," he was aware who they are; in 
the measure that they could receiveit,he had 
a word for them. But for the most part they 
turned their superior backs upon him ; that 
there could be any culture outside of col- 
leges and drawing-rooms seemed to them 
absurd. But this man of the streets saw fur- 
ther than they. Whitman had erudition, 
though it was acquired in his own way, not 

1 20 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

in the schools ; it was much more extensive 
than people supposed, for he held it cheap 
in comparison with the realities of life. With 
him, learning was quite incidental to living : 
he guessed ulterior values. The best cul- 
ture, as Whitman conceives it, is " that of 
the manly and courageous instincts,and lov- 
ing perceptions, and of self-respect." It is 
not limited to parlors and lecture-rooms, but 
applies to the conduct of the common daily 
round of duties and affairs. To this culture 
any man is eligible. It consists not in the 
acquisition of facts, but in the discipline of 
the intelligence through contact with real 
things, in the deepening of the sympathies, 
and in self-mastery. The fruits of it are not 
information and social address, but person- 
ality; its richest recompense inures to the 
soul. W r hitman , s learning did not stop 
with itself; his experience of life, many- 
sided and profound, issued in wisdom. He 
knew, as learned men often do not know, 
that 

121 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, 

Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another 
not having it, 

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its 
own proof. 

Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is con- 
tent, 

Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, 
and the excellence of things. 

It was not the erudite and self-sufficient 
people, as people, that Whitman ques- 
tioned ; it was their erudition and their self- 
sufficiency that he rejected, for the very- 
sake of the learned ones themselves. 

This exception made, if it be really an 
exception, Whitman gives himself unre- 
servedly, with the uncalculating lavishness 
of Nature. A great sustaining sympathy 
streams from him like light from the sun, 
and envelops all men, the just and the un- 
just, in its quickening flood. What is thus 
primarily natural and inevitable with him, 
Whitman elevates into a conscious prin- 
ciple of conduct. The practical solution of 

122 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

all the complexities of human relations he 
finds in comradeship. Emotionally, this 
bond of union between man and man, or 
man and woman indifferently, is completely 
satisfying ; for comradeship includes not 
only friendship, sympathy, and adhesive- 
ness, but also love in the largest sense. 
With Whitman, the love of man for woman 
is a comparatively simple matter. He does 
not trouble himself with its psychology, all 
its infinite subtleties and shades. He takes 
it quite innocently and frankly, as Nature 
intends it, as the means of fulfilling her 
ultimate design. Whitman, it must be con- 
ceded, is not a woman's poet. The glory 
of motherhood he celebrates with a divine 
enthusiasm and cosmic rejoicing ; this au- 
gust mission and destiny that is hers lifts 
woman to the highest station in the uni- 
versal order. But in all the other and, as 
it seems to him, lesser relations of life, she 
does not enter into his scheme. The recon- 
dite, intricate play of a woman's mind and 

* 2 3 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

feeling is removed from his observation ; 
the recesses of her heart, flashed open to 
the touch of love, are closed to him. He 
quite ignores the countless sensitive adjust- 
ments involved in the relation of man to 
woman. Whitman conceives woman in the 
large : she is not the beloved, hardly even 
the wife, but the heroic mother of stalwart 
men. Her status is thus defined with an en- 
tire simplicity; and she figures in his poetry 
with a corresponding mass and breadth. 
Whitman places woman with reference to 
his own conception of universal purposes 
and ends ; she stands as a type and an in- 
strument. He reckons with woman, but 
not with women. So far as regards imme- 
diate practical life in terms of her individ- 
ual experience of it, Whitman clearly has 
not a woman's point of view. He takes 
her as more and as less than she feels her- 
self to be. He makes too much of the great 
things and not enough of the little. He 
sees her as cosmic, and fails to understand 

124 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

her ; she is willing to be only human, if 
only she is loved. 

In so far as Whitman is unable to inter- 
pret woman to herself, and through under- 
standing and sympathy to make her life 
his own, in that measure of course he misses 
theoretic completeness and fails to close the 
circle of experience. But in practice, so far 
as concerns his own reaction, the break is 
not absolute. For the same enthusiasm, 
imagination, romance, and poetry that are 
commonly accorded to love, he lavishes 
upon comradeship. [With Whitman, com- 
radeship is at once an ideal and a passion. 
Into this relation he pours all the emo- 
tionalism in which his full nature is so 
rich. In sentiment, in fervor, in all the 
transfiguring emotions that make life new 
and glorious, comradeship lacks nothing. 
It supplies him a happiness that is purely 
physical, it is so actual and immediate. 

I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough, 
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, 

125 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laugh- 
ing flesh is enough, 

To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm 
ever so lightly round his or her neck for a mo- 
ment, what is this then ? 

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea. 

Comradeship brings him also the satisfac- 
tion of his deepest emotional needs. Earth's 
richest, most majestic shows — the perfect- 
modeled battleship, the splendors of day 
and night, the vaunted glory and growth 
of the great city spread around him — can- 
not move him like the glimpse he has of 
two simple men on the pier parting the 
parting of dear friends. He does not envy 
the fame of heroes nor the victories of gen- 
erals, he does not envy the President in his 
Presidency nor the rich in his great house, — 

But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it 
was with them, 

How together through life, through dangers, odium, 
unchanging, long and long, 

Through youth and through middle and old age, how un- 
faltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, 

Then I am pensive — I hastily walk away fill'd with 
the bitterest envy. 

126 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

Not reputation and applause, not material 
possessions, not culture, nor worldly power 
can offer him the joy and peace he finds in 
the companionship of his friend. And for 
all the effort and the struggle, — the price 
of life in this world, — such friendship as 
he dreams of and is able to realize, is 
perfect compensation. Such satisfaction is 
realized as wisdom, and transcends expres- 
sion. 

When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long 

while holding me by the hand, 
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that 

words and reason hold not, surround us and 

pervade us, 
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, 

I am silent, I require nothing further. 

Whitman makes of comradeship a new 
evangel. It is the base of all metaphysics; 
underneath all philosophies and all gospels 
he sees "the dear love of man for his com- 
rade." He believes that "the main pur- 
port of these States is to found a superb 

friendship, exalte, previously unknown." 

127 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Through comradeship, and only so, is De- 
mocracy to be realized on any large and 
enduring scale ; therein lies its assurance 
for the present and its hope for the future. 
His intention is wholly constructive. Re- 
garding society as it is at present consti- 
tuted, he refuses to take sides ; he renounces 
all parties, and will not ally himself with 
existing organizations. He is neither for 
nor against institutions, but he will estab- 
lish 

Without edifice or rules or trustees or any argument, 
The institution of the dear love of comrades. 

Whitman's terms are becoming somewhat 
vague here, for he is moving now in uncer- 
tain regions of political speculation and so- 
cial theory; but at the base of his terms 
there is a definite reality. This reality is 
practical sympathy. To explicate that sym- 
pathy, to reveal its possibilities and make 
application of it to all relations of life, is a 
leading motive in " Leaves of Grass." He 

sent out the book, he says, — 

128 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 



u 



to set flowing in men's and women's hearts, 
young and old, endless streams of living, pul- 
sating love and friendship, directly from them 
to myself, now and ever. To this terrible, irre- 
pressible yearning, (surely more or less down 
underneath in most human souls) — this never- 
satisfied appetite for sympathy, and this bound- 
less offering of sympathy — this universal de- 
mocratic comradeship — this old, eternal, yet 
ever-new interchange of adhesiveness, so fitly 
emblematic of America — I have given in that 
book, undisguisedly, declaredly, the openest ex- 
pression." 

And he adds : — 

" It is by a fervent, accepted development of 
comradeship, the beautiful and sane affection of 
man for man, . . . that the United States of the 
future are to be most effectually welded together, 
intercalated, anneal'd into a living union." 

Thus Whitman interprets the world and 

construes human relationships out of his 

own nature. Life is for him always " a poem 

of new joys," because he is in himself so 

129 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

perfectly at one with the forces and influ- 
ences that play through all natural things. 
His response to their impact is a complete 
harmony that issues in happiness. In the 
same spirit of trust and joy that he yields 
to the persuasions of the external world, 
he gives himself to his fellows. The grate- 
ful love which floods his being overflows 
universally. He is not held by the ties of 
mere kinship : all men are in the deepest 
and truest sense his brothers. He is not 
limited to a few chosen intimacies, to the 
exclusion of the mass outside. There are 
no strangers now; there are only comrades. 
Attachment and devotion usurp the place 
of enmity, and banish fear. His friend and 
lover is the one with whom he happens to 
be. This humanly accidental, divinely in- 
tended, companionship is enough. " He 
ahold of my hand has completely satisfied 
me." It is difficult to conceive the inclus- 
iveness of Whitman's sympathy ; it is im- 
possible to measure its beneficence. That 

130 



THE HUMAN APPEAL 

sympathy is living and potent to-day, not 
only through the miracle of the printed 
page, but bridging in its impetus the chasm 
of death, and triumphing in its intensity 
over time and distance. To know Whit- 
man is to feel it, and to go one's way en- 
riched and enheartened. 

This is the human appeal of Whitman. 
But a word still remains to be spoken. 
Accepting life as it is with thankfulness 
and joy, he yet interprets it in terms of 
spiritual values. The power of which he is 
the reverent and happy instrument is of 
God. 



IV 

THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

We too take ship O soul, 

Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas, 

Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to 

sail, 
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I 

thee to me, O soul,) 
Caroling free, singing our song of God, 
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration. 

Immense as were the satisfactions which 
befell Walt Whitman on his leisurely- 
way through the world, yet his whole life, 
in the inner meaning of it, figures itself as 
an eager, unremitted quest. So potent is 
his immediately human appeal, that this 
good comrade does not at once reveal him- 
self as a spiritual pioneer. Those who 
knew him in the life were drawn to him 
irresistibly by the undefinable attraction 

of his presence, without perhaps divining 

132 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

the true sources of his poise and power. 
Something more than his compelling per- 
sonal magnetism, however, distinguishes 
him from the mass : there are depths, of 
which his abounding sympathy is but the 
overflow and expression. Endowed though 
he was with an heroic physique of singular 
perfection and beauty, yet the essential 
fibre of his nature is spiritual. He realizes 
practically, and to an extent that it is 
granted only to a chosen few to realize, 
that the central reality of being is the soul. 
The motive force of his life is the passion 
and the struggle to possess the soul's in- 
heritance. Gladly upon this high adven- 
ture he dares all, risks all, suffers all. His 
happiness is to pursue the quest. His re- 
compense is to know God. 

Whitman is launched upon experience 
as one in love with life, in all its multitud- 
inousness. Indoors or out, in art or in 
nature, all sights and sounds, all contacts, 
all odors and tastes, in solitude or with 

! 33 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

companions, in the rush of streets, across 
the fields and hillsides, or by the sea, what- 
ever and wherever, — it is a wonderful and 
vivid rapture. 

How curious ! how real ! 

Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun. 

But Whitman is aware too of another re- 
ality. Out of the welter emerges an entity 
in contrast and seeming opposition to the 
external order. However curious and real 
this outer world and its actualities and ex- 
citements, yet " they are not the Me my- 
self." Experience resolves itself, therefore, 
into two realities, the soul and that other 
that is not the soul. 

I and this mystery, here we stand. 
But how to reconcile the contrast, and 
in the opposition to find peace ? Un- 
daunted, Whitman confronts the mystery. 
To the fullest reaches of his strength he 
undergoes " the vehement struggle so fierce 
for unity in oneself." But not in himself 
only. For his great heart leaps out to the 

*34 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

throng and press of human agonies, and 
the long file of the sons of men passes be- 
fore his vision, — 

Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explora- 
tions, 

With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with 
never-happy hearts, 

With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied 
soul? and Whither O mocking life ? 

Insatiably the soul thus questions life. 
Few men have had so great a measure of 
happiness as Whitman compassed, but few 
have finally gone so deep to win it. His 
happiness is not achieved upon the merely 
human plane of instant desires and fleeting 
gratifications : it is fundamental, and of 
the soul. It comes of the harmony he is 
able actually to realize with the "mighty, 
elemental throes, in which and upon which 
we float, and every one of us is buoy'd." 
Along the way, he knows what it is to 
suffer. He knows what it means to be 
alone. It is granted him to taste the joys 
of life, — the lavishness of Nature's goods, 

i35 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

and the fruitions of love and comradeship. 
He knows, too, the sustaining power of 
faith and hope. But lacking yet one thing, 
these are not enough. There is still the 
insistent, ever-recurring question, To what 
end ? Not here, not there, is the answer, 
but within and above. Out of finite hu- 
man isolation the soul finds completion in 
the infinite ; by surrender it achieves. God 
is all, — "is immanent in every life and 
object, may-be at many and many-a-more 
removes/' — yet God is there. 

Has the estray wander' d far? Is the reason- why 
strangely hidden ? 

Would you sound below the restless ocean of the en- 
tire world ? 

Would you know the dissatisfaction ? the urge and spur 
of every life ; 

The something never still' d — never entirely gone ? the 
invisible need of every seed ? 

It is the central urge in every atom, 
(Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,) 
To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, 
Latent the same in subject and in object, without one 
exception. 

136 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

This is the soul's adventure — to find 
God. The voyage is far and perilous across 
the uncharted spaces, but resolute, the soul 
fares forth. 

O my brave soul ! 

O farther farther sail ! 

O daring joy, but safe ! are they not all the seas of 

God? 
O farther, farther, farther sail ! 

As Whitman is billowed through the shows 
of earth's pageantries, taking his fill of 
them, he is ever seeking the great source 
and origin. The quest is truly the central 
urge of his whole being, transfiguring life, 
making its sorrows glorious, its human de- 
feats a victory, and sealing its joys with the 
supreme sanction. Embarked on this high 
emprise, the soul may not rest. It will take 
its use of the things it encounters, it will 
gather the love out of men's hearts, but it 
must not be held by any earthly or merely 
personal ties: "Whoso loveth father or 
mother more than Me is not worthy of 

i37 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Me." In its journey to "that which is end- 
less as it was beginningless," it must merge 
all "in the start of superior journeys." 

You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, 
you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before 
you are call'd by an irresistible call to depart, 

You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings 
of those who remain behind you, 

What beckonings of love you receive you shall only 
answer with passionate kisses of parting, 

You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their 
reach' d hands toward you. 

Onward, forever onward, the soul passes. 
In the fulfillment of its mission it comes to 
"know the universe itself as a road, as many 
roads, as roads for traveling souls." 

Whitman does not falter on the quest. 
He is eager to seek and patient to endure. 
He follows the open road, through dark- 
ness into light, meeting suffering and pain, 
yet singing always a glad, exulting, cul- 
minating song of joy. He does not with- 
hold himself from any experience, however 
counter or remote, for seeing life under the 

138 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

aspect of eternity, he transmutes all things 
into good. One ideal is his guide, one 
sovereign purpose sustains him. And his 
faith is not betrayed. His high daring and 
devoted singleness of effort receive their 
triumphant reward. As one who has come 
through great tribulation, he is counted 
worthy. Whitman is vouchsafed the beati- 
fic vision. His is the blessedness of the 
pure in heart, for it is granted him to 
see God. In rapture of the vision he 
cries, — 

O Thou transcendent, 

Nameless, the fibre and the breath, 

Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre 

of them, 
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving, 
Thou moral, spiritual fountain — affection's source — 

thou reservoir, 
. . . • . . . . . 

Thou pulse — thou motive of the stars, suns, systems, 
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious, 
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space. 

So the radiance of God's presence, " light 
rare, untellable, lighting the very light," 

'39 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

floods the soul. After years of search and 
longing, in the crowded ways of men, in 
spaces of open fields, in the baffling soli- 
tude of the sea, Whitman receives illum- 
ination. He is filled with the peace and 
knowledge that pass all the argument of 
the earth. With a certainty beyond logic 
and proof, he knows that the spirit of God 
is the brother of his own. Veritably, Whit- 
man is possessed of God. The vision is 
indeed the crown of his endeavor, but he 
does not here resign the quest. God's in- 
stant presence lights his way, but the soul 
has yet a consummation to achieve. Surges 
of the " sea of torment, doubt, despair and 
unbelief" toss and constrain him; "wrapt 
in these little potencies of progress, poli- 
tics, culture, wealth, inventions, civiliza- 
tion," he loses recognition of the silent, 
ever-swaying power of the vital universal 
force that quickens all life toward its goal. 
The struggle is never to be remitted ; but 
through it he presses on to the ultimate 

140 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

fulfillment, when the soul shall be forever 
and perfectly one in God. 

Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev'd, 
The seas all cross' d, weather* d the capes, the voyage 

done, 
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim 

attain' d, 
As fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder 

Brother found, 
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms. 

Whitman's inmost experience is not to 
be told in words. Only the soul may know 
God, and the soul has no vocabulary. Whit- 
man's religious experience is so intimate and 
personal that he has himself succeeded in 
communicating it in his poetry only by 
such symbols as his imagination could wrest 
from the current language of men. One fact, 
however, defines itself as salient, namely, 
that the sum and essence of Whitman's life 
is religion. In a wholly practical, no less 
than mystical, sense, his supreme concern 
is the soul's relation to God. As he con- 
ceives and lives it, religion is not a part of 

141 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

man's experience, though indeed the high- 
est part. It is the entirety of existence, 
giving their import to all the varied forms 
of man's activity, and making "the whole 
coincide." 

It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands 
sweeps and provides for all. 

This conception of the scope and signi- 
ficance of religion determines Whitman's 
attitude toward the world. Certain beyond 
perad venture of the essential spirituality of 
all things, and sustained by his conviction 
of the profound religiousness of every act, 
he sees that the struggle of contending forces 
in which man finds himself enmeshed is but 
the necessary condition of the soul's pro- 
gress to its goal, its union with the divine. 
He welcomes every experience that can be- 
fall him, for through it God is working out 
His purpose for the soul. To interpret 
the world in the light of the illumination 
vouchsafed to him is the motive of his 
poetry. 

142 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a 

greater religion, 
The following chants each for its kind I sing. 

Whitman thus expressly declares him- 
self a prophet. His vision of ultimate truths 
is authentic; his immediate experience of 
God, ecstatic and transcendent, is yet a vital 
reality. It is a proud title, however, that he 
arrogates to himself, that of a prophet of a 
"greater religion." Its justification is to be 
sought in Whitman's relation to the general 
religious experience of the race. Its value 
may perhaps be suggested by a considera- 
tion of its practical consequences for men's 
life to-day, as they too are engaged in a 
like adventure. 

In point of intellectual content, Whit- 
man's faith has elements in common with 
historic religions. Although he is to be re- 
garded in some sense as a new voice, as an- 
other messiah, among many, to whom God 
has given a special revelation of Himself, yet 

143 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

he gladly acknowledges his debt to the older 
faiths and to the prophets of all times. His 
mission, as he takes it, is " following many 
and follow'd by many," to "inaugurate a 
religion " ; and he sings " a worship new." 
Yet Whitman has the historic sense, and he 
recognizes that the religious consciousness 
of man is a development. I n his representa- 
tive character, he identifies himself imagin- 
atively with worshipers of every degree in 
the evolution of the race. With the savage, 
he makes a fetich of the first rock or stump ; 
"to Shastas and Vedas admirant," he helps 
the eastern lama or brahmin as he trims the 
lamps of the idols ; he waits responses from 
oracles, and as a Greek, he dances through 
the streets in aphallicprocession;hedoesnot 
ignore the Koran. He accepts the Gospels, 
" accepting Him that was crucified, knowing 
assuredly that He is divine." He is in turn 
Catholic, Puritan, Quaker, Methodist. In- 
terpreted, this symbolism means that the 
modern man, as whose representative finally 

144 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

Whitman speaks, is a growth out of the past. 
In all times and in all lands, God has granted 
a revelation of Himself to men, according 
to the measure of their capacity to receive 
it. His revelation is not limited but uni- 
versal; it is not static and final, but pro- 
gressive. Each new experience of God 
vouchsafed to the individual becomes 
a further manifestation of His unfolding 
purpose, a new epiphany to the race. 

So Whitman, in his own person, as one 
who has walked with God, taking up the 
message as his forerunners have delivered 
incomes "magnifying and applying." In 
man's earlier conceptions, God is objecti- 
fied in the things of Nature, in the sun, in 
fire and wind and rain, in rivers, trees, and 
stones. At length He is personified. Man 
makes God in his own image, endowing 
Him with human will and emotions. But 
Whitman takesastep in advance. He names, 
each with his name, the Gods of old, Jeho- 
vah, Zeus, Osiris, Brahma, Odin, Allah, — 

L 

145 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent 

more, 
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their 

days, 
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in 

myself. 

The elder beliefs, which thus personify God, 
represent but a stage in the evolution of the 
religious consciousness. There is a measure 
of truth and of reality in them ; they were 
the best and the furthest that men could 
conceive in their time. But such concep- 
tions necessarily limit what is now known 
to be illimitable. A personified God is by 
that very fact only finite; whereas the mind 
demands and the heart craves the infinite. 
Whitman has had this fuller revelation. Be- 
cause of his own immediate knowledge of 
God, he is able to fill out these rough deific 
sketches better in himself. Out of his own 
experience he transcends the limitations of 
formal systems. He is great enough in him- 
self to guess, if he cannot fully comprehend, 
the inconceivable and ineffable greatness of 

146 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

God. So he goes beyond the mere anthro- 
pomorphic conception of the Deity, for God 
is too vast to be contained in a formula or 
a person. Yet none the less the relation be- 
tween man and God is a personal relation. 
The springs of life are not a blind, inscrut- 
able force or energy, inherent in matter, and 
operating inexorably according to its own 
self-constituted laws. The universe is not 
a huge machine, set going nobody knows 
quite how or why, but now running itself, 
— a monster engine whose methods of oper- 
ation man may observe and describe,though 
quite without feeling toward it. On the con- 
trary, the mystery, the wonder, and the 
beauty of its processes rouse a response in 
the soul of man. He beholds them with awe, 
with adoration and worship and love. It is 
a living power, and man enters into com- 
munion with it. God is a spirit. The soul 
is drawn to God by its human need of Him, 
and it finds Him through love. He pos- 
sesses utterly the heart, and man's life is to 

H7 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

do His will in joy and thankfulness. The 
relation is natural, not supernatural. God 
is not throned afar in another world, but 
reigns immediate and instant in this world. 
The whole earth is full of His glory. Whit- 
man does not wish to see God any better 
than this day, for he sees " something of 
God each hour of the twenty-four, and each 
moment then." There are no bounds to 
His pervasiveness. If He is higher than the 
heavens, He is deep in the hearts of men; 
ranging the immensities beyond space, He 
breathes in the curling grass. The universe 
is God. And every least particle of it is the 
expression of His thought and love. 

But, it may be objected, is not this gener- 
ous recognition of the divine principle in 
everything a loosening of the ties that bind 
man to his God ? Where everything is di- 
vine, then by reversing the application of 
the standard, nothing is divine. In the lack 
of distinctions and differences, all values 
become confused. How shall man find God, 

148 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

as God, if there is nothing that is not God ? 
Is not this diffusion attended by a corre- 
sponding relaxation ? That depends. If a 
man's reliance is upon the external world, 
whether the natural world actually around 
him or a supernatural world, reproducing 
in all its essential features the present order 
only on a higher plane, then such a man is 
likely to demand an objective God, a dis- 
tinct and separate entity, to whom he may 
come in supplication. For him, God is an 
over-ruling power, who may be moved by 
the petitions of His servants ; for him, God 
must be concrete and definite. For such a 
man, the conception that the kingdom of 
heaven is within him, that God is a spirit in 
the sense in which Jesus truly meant the 
words, may indeed tend to undermine 
the very foundations of his faith. Because 
the same habit of mind which leads him to 
demand an external and objective God, and 
so to mistake the symbol for the reality, 
will require him to confound God with the 

.149 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

object itself, and so God becomes no God. 
For such a man, of literal and materialistic 
bent, Whitman's conception, bridging the 
chasm between man and God, substituting 
identity for separateness, and superseding 
judgment with love, may tend to subvert 
his sense of moral obligation and responsi- 
bility. Whitman's conception of the Deity, 
however, is not a vague pantheism. He 
does not teach that the object itself is God, 
but rather that in and through the object, 
God is revealed. God does not limit the 
revelation of Himself to bibles and oracles; 
He speaks not only by the mouths of pro- 
phets. He manifests Himself in every ob- 
ject, He breathes in every living thing, He 
moves in every thought and act. Rightly 
understood, this conception, affirming, 
through the primacy of the soul, the di- 
vinity of man and the immanence of 
God, brings man into more immediate and 
ever fuller and richer communion with 

God. 

150 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

Though Whitman, resting securely in 
certain fundamental convictions, wishes to 
"leave all free," yet in one poem he has 
attempted by comparison and contrast to 
define in the accepted formulas his own 
conception of the nature of God. Recog- 
nizing that God is finally ineffable, never- 
theless he ventures to set forth in human 
terms what he humanly conceives of the 
divine principle in the universe. So he 
traces the " Square Deific." His figure does 
not pretend to represent God in Himself; 
it shadows forth only man's image of Him. 
Whitman employs for his terms the symbols 
hallowed by the usage of the centuries. 

As his mind ranges the circuit of being, 
the poet sees active in the moral and re- 
ligious life of man four powers or forces, 
which may be named abstractly : first, law 
and judgment ; second, love and forgive- 
ness ; third, rebellion and the tendency to 
evil; fourth, reconciliation and the fusion 
of all in one. These powers he personifies 

IS 1 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

as Jehovah, Christ, Satan, and the Holy 
Spirit. 

The underlying fact of the universe, in- 
evitable and inexorable, is Law. Man can- 
not escape himself, nor avert the law of 
his own being. Unpersuadable, relentless, 
without mercy or remorse, God decrees 
compensation and exacts retribution. Je- 
hovah is judge. 

But this is only the base of the Square. 
Intercepting the Law and turning its di- 
rection, rises Love. From this side, lo ! the 
Lord Christ gazes, Consolator most mild, 
with gentle hand extended, the mightier 
God. Love diverts Law but continues it, 
and is necessary to complete the Square. 
Love does not abrogate the Law, but it 
redeems man from its tyranny, offering 
hope and all-enclosing charity. The indi- 
vidual is destined to an early death, but 
Love abides. The Saviour passes ; salva- 
tion is eternal. 

At the other extreme of the line of Law, 
152 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

and opposite to Love, rises Revolt. The 
individual asserts himself and his own will 
against the divine will. Here from his side, 
Satan is " permanent, equal with any, real 
as any." Where Law is, there must trans- 
gression be. There is no good without an 
evil corresponding. In the finite world of 
human experience, the principle of evil is 
a necessity, and must be, so long as fini- 
tude endures. 

There is yet another principle, however, 
which completes the whole. Closing the 
Square, parallel with Law, mastering Evil, 
and fulfilling Love, is Spirit. This is the 
Ultimate Reality, the one essence of all 
things. It includes not only Saviour and 
Satan, but also God Himself conceived as 
a person. 

Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what were all ? 

what were God ?) 
Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, 

positive, (namely the unseen,) 
Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and 

of man, I, the general soul. 

*53 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Thus Whitman reaches the most inclus- 
ive idea of God. On the finite plane he 
recognizes the necessary antinomies of hu- 
man thinking and human experience. Good 
and evil are actual in this world ; " the dif- 
ference between sin and goodness is no de- 
lusion " : there is sin and there is the cor- 
responding need of salvation. Hence Satan 
and the Saviour, hence rebellion and the min- 
istry of love. There is the unescapable law 
of compensation and retribution. Hence Je- 
hovah, eternal Lawgiver and Judge. These 
antinomies of the finite plane Whitman 
does not attempt to efface or to reconcile, 
but he recognizes them only to transcend 
them. All finite contradictions are resolved 
in the universal Consciousness, which is 
at once the Thinker and the thought ; 
the limitations of a personified God are 
gathered up and lost in the general Soul. 

With Whitman, God is realized as ex- 
perience. He is not a tradition, a doctrine, 

!54 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

or a postulate. He is a presence. For the 
fullest revelation of God, Whitman turns 
to his own soul. As he welcomes the partial 
conceptions of Deity of earlier eras for the 
measure of truth they have in them, al- 
though he is able out of his own experi- 
ence of reality to transcend them, so he 
accepts the bibles of humanity in so far 
as they tally with what he already deeply 
knows of God. Assuredly they are divine. 
But they are not the last word. They have 
all grown out of men, and may still grow 
out of them : it is not bibles, but men, that 
give the life. The whole universe itself is 
an infinite bible, wherein at every instant 
the living God reveals Himself in charac- 
ters of light. Whitman does not " object 
to special revelations," but he considers 
" a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of 
my hand just as curious as any revelation." 
So in respect to the authority of the written 
word, he c< would leap beyond, yet nearer 
bring." Whitman reaches his truth through 

i55 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

his whole being, — through his deep need 
of God, through the presentments of the 
external world, through the response of his 
spirit to the call and welcome of the uni- 
verse. He takes his authority finally where 
any man may have it "cheapest," namely, 
from his own soul. 

Whatever satisfies souls is true; 

The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from 
every lesson but its own. 

In a stray manuscript fragment, Whit- 
man notes : — 

" The certain evolution of (not ecclesiasticism 
but) Religion through all stages and happenings 
is (in my opinion) the inevitable developement 
of humanity and literature. The summum of it 
would be, that a man cannot go beyond his own 
soul, and there is nothing higher than the soul ; 
that it finally settles all things by its own stand- 
ard — settles questions of authority, calibers of 
Deity, and all that relates to Deity, just the same 
— whatever the ostensible standards, settles them 
by its own standards." 

156 






i 







>^§$^ 







THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

In the result, Whitman's position is not a 
negation of authority but a higher affirma- 
tion. 

The immediacy of the soul's relation to 
God is the centre from which Whitman 
looks out upon the world. The radiance of 
the Infinite burns in the discrete forms 
of the finite. The light of God's counten- 
ance illumines the path of men. In this 
light Whitman endeavors to interpret the 
facts of experience as they are presented to 
his scrutiny. His religion determines his 
philosophy. The name that should be given 
to his philosophy is not important in his 
case, even if exact definition were possible. 
Whitman expressly ordains himself "loos'd 
of limits and imaginary lines"; he re- 
cognizes no bounds. "Who has gone far- 
thest ? for I would go farther." Moreover, 
the accepted labels of the schools do not 
fit precisely this speculative wayfarer. 
Whitman was a thinker but not a meta- 
physician. He was versed in Oriental mys- 

i57 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ticism, and he was familiar with the results 
of German speculation, notably the work of 
Hegel. But he was in no sense a profes- 
sional student of the history of thought. 
He got his philosophy where every man 
finally gets his own, if it counts practically 
in his life ; namely, out of himself. In its 
philosophic aspect, " Leaves of Grass " is 
to be regarded rather as a contribution to- 
ward a world-view than as a definite meta- 
physical system ; for Whitman does not 
attempt to formulate a philosophy. He 
merely puts himself on record, what he 
thinks and feels, for the most part in rather 
inconsequent and haphazard fashion. He 
takes experience as it comes to him, quite 
simply, and he sets down his reaction. He 
holds himself passive. He does not go out 
to seek occasion ; it comes to him. As a 
forest draws the rain by subtle influences 
in response to its need of nutriment, so 
Whitman, by force of his very courage in 
confronting life, by the magnetism of his 

' 158 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

compelling sincerity, attracts all experience 
to himself. His faith is great ; and the 
world-order does not fail him. The need 
itself is a prayer, and God answers it. In 
the unfolding vistas he reads the revelation. 

O vast Rondure, swimming in space, 

Cover' d all over with visible power and beauty, 

Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual dark- 
ness, 

Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and 
countless stars above, 

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mount- 
ains, trees, 

With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic in- 
tention, 

Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee. 

Consequent upon his receptive attitude 
follows the seeming chaos of his world of 
impression, for he takes things as they 
happen, without selection or effort toward 
arrangement. But as he is registering each 
immediate fact or emotion in all fidelity, 
then experience begins to widen and deepen ; 
gradually it shapes itself more and more 
into an ordered, purposeful whole. Though 

i59 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

he does not attempt to systematize, his 
words, ever faithful to the fact they repre- 
sent, become surcharged with implications. 
What he sets down is philosophy in pro- 
cess. His fluid thought, embracing the 
increasingly remote, diverse regions of cir- 
cumstance and emotion, penetrates appear- 
ances. As a noiseless, patient spider, to 
explore the cc vacant vast surrounding," 
launches forth filament after filament out 
of itself, so his soul, surrounded, detached, 
in measureless oceans of space, ceaselessly 
musing, venturing, seeks the spheres to 
connect them,- — 

Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile 

anchor hold, 
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere O 

my soul. 

Finally thus he achieves the end of the 
soul's quest, the vision of God. 

The realization of the instant presence 

of God, in Nature and in the spirit of man, 

1 60 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

transfigures life. Whitman interprets the 
universe, the facts of consciousness and 
the phenomena of the objective world, in 
terms of spirituality. It is all " soul." Not 
in the sense, however, that Whitman denies 
the reality of matter. Few men, indeed, 
have felt more vividly and powerfully the 
compulsions of the physical world. " The 
physical and the sensuous, in themselves 
or in their immediate continuations/' Whit- 
man wrote in 1876, "retain holds upon 
me which I think are never entirely re- 
leas'd; and those holds I have not only 
not denied, but hardly wish'd to weaken." 
Actual direct contact with things is fullest 
nourishment to him, and his delight in it 
is immense. Philosophically, also, he as- 
signs to matter its just valuation in the 
universal scheme. Matter is not to be de- 
nied or ignored ; it is necessary to the 
cosmic whole and is inseparable from it. 
Matter and spirit are not contrasted and 

irreconcilable opposites, but rather they are 

161 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

mutually complementary. " Lack one lacks 
both, and the unseen is proved by the 
seen." In one way or another Whitman 
affirms again and again that " the soul is 
not more than the body." Even his unre- 
mitted communion with God does not 
withdraw him from the material, objective 
world, but impels him the more deeply into 
it. For with Whitman, God is hardly to be 
conceived apart from His concrete mani- 
festations. Though a keen thinker, Whit- 
man deals very little in abstractions. Life 
comes to him as sensation and image ; he 
apprehends the universal as everywhere 
particularized in the single instance. Ex- 
perience builds itself up for him as a suc- 
cession of kaleidoscopic sights and sounds 
and contacts, which he absorbs with his 
very body. He luxuriates in them with 
elemental abandon. The richness and in- 
exhaustible variety of these riotous shows 
brims the measure of his joy, and he is 

moved to cry, out of the fullness of the 

162 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

beauty and power of things : " The earth, 
that is sufficient ! " 

But Whitman does not rest just there. 
Though he thus assigns to matter its en- 
tire emphasis, yet he recognizes equally an- 
other principle, which gives the whole its 
meaning. Having looked at the objects of 
the universe, he finds that there is "no one 
nor any particle of one but has reference 
to the soul." Invoking " spirituality, the 
translatress," he demands of material ob- 
jects " the spiritual corresponding." He 
will make the poems of materials, for they 
are to be the most spiritual poems. The 
objective world of matter is an undeniable 
reality. But it is not final; its character is 
mediate. Its function is to embody the soul, 
to impart individuality to the universal in its 
particular manifestations. Whitman's prim- 
ary assumption in respect to the external 
world is " the temporary use of materials for 
identity's sake." The condition of the soul's 

finite existence in the individual is the body. 

163 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself, receiving 

identity through materials and loving them, ob- 
serving characters and absorbing them, 

My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, 
hearing, touch, reason, articulation, compari- 
son, memory, and the like, 

The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my 
senses and flesh. 

In Whitman's sense of it, the objects of 
the material world are more than merely 
limited and passive symbols. So convinced 
is he of the actuality of the soul, that mys- 
tically he imputes consciousness even to 
inanimate things. 

1 swear I think now that every thing without exception 

has an eternal soul ! 
The trees have, rooted in the ground ! the weeds of the 
sea have ! the animals ! 

He hears the redwood tree murmuring out 

of its myriad leaves, and this is its chant : — 

You untold life of me, 

For I know I bear the soul befitting me, I too have con- 
sciousness, identity, 
And all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth. 

Only so, by virtue of this common ele- 
ment of soul in which all things share, can 

164 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

he explain the response which his spirit 
meets in Nature. The air that serves him 
with breath to speak, the objects that call 
from diffusion his meanings and give them 
shape, the light that wraps him and all things 
in delicate equable showers, the paths worn 
in the irregular hollows by the roadside, he 
believes they are "latent with unseen ex- 
istences," they are so dear to him. Practi- 
cally he feels his kinship with the engaging 
forms of the outer world. Reflection dis- 
covers that the link and bond of union is 
the soul. It is through the soul, also, that 
man is enabled to apprehend the Infinite. 
Were it not for this capacity and power, the 
sheer conception of God would overwhelm 
the finitude of man. 

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, 

At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and 

Death, 
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me, 
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs, 
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, 
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space. 

165 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

In Whitman's cosmos, therefore, the es- 
sential reality is spirit, or, as he more often 
names it, the soul. It is not a metaphysical 
abstraction, but a present and immediate 
actuality. Just this familiar commonplace 
world of everyday experience is its mani- 
festation. 

Was somebody asking to see the soul ? 

See, your own shape and countenance, persons, sub- 
stances, beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the 
rocks and sands. 

Philosophically regarded, the soul is the 
absolute within the relative, and compre- 
hends it. It links the individual with the 
universal. In its separate manifestations, 
— in the being of man, in the life of mount- 
ains, rivers, trees, of continents and seas, 
of skies and stars, — it still remains of one 
essence. Its various activities through dis- 
crete forms are figured forth as eidolons. 
This conception serves as "light for all and 
entrance-song for all." It unites the seg- 
ments to the circle, and gathers up every 

1 66 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

single unit of each life into a whole. Out 
of the hues and objects of the world rise 
eidolons. The visible is but their womb of 
birth. Materials, ever-changing, crumbling, 
recohering, body them forth. The outward 
forms of wealth and strength and beauty- 
express them. The eidolon is the ideal, 
at once the animating spirit of the artist's 
mood, the scholar's studies, the toils of 
martyr and of hero, and also the end which 
their efforts seek to accomplish. It is the 
soul's mate, the real I myself, which gives 
purport to the body. It is the permanent 
life of life, the entity of entities. By " eido- 
lon," therefore, Whitman seems to mean 
what Plato meant by " Idea." It is the 
archetypal pattern, spiritual in essence, and 
eternal, to which material in its momentary 
and shifting moulds endeavors to conform. 
Yet with this difference from Plato, that 
whereas the Platonic Idea is static eter- 
nally, Whitman's eidolon is dynamic and 
progressive. 

167 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Ever the dim beginning, 
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, 
Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start 
again,) 

Eidolons! eidolons! 

From the old, old urge, — 

Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pin- 
nacles, . 
From science and the modern still impell'd. 

Unfixed yet fixed, they sweep the present 
to the infinite future. The prophet and 
the bard, in higher stages yet, shall still 
mediate to the modern, shall still inter- 
pret, God and eidolons. 

This conception of eidolons is far-reach- 
ing in its application. In common with 
idealism of all ages, it postulates spirit as 
the universal principle. But, further, Whit- 
man brings his speculation into harmony 
with the most advanced thought of his 
time, in that it allies itself with the doc- 
trine of evolution. It allows for progress 
in the continuous self-realization of God 
through the world. By this conception, 

168 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

also, Whitman resolves the paradox of the 
finite division of the infinite, of separate 
identity within the universal. He is aware 
of eternity, but he does not deny the mo- 
ment. The individual is at once bounded 
and boundless, limited by identity but lim- 
itless in possibilities. Man rises out of an 
infinite past into the finite being and mo- 
ment of the present, and straightway he 
looks toward an infinite future, — the dim 
beginning and the merge at last, " to surely 
start again. " Because of the fluid character 
of eidolons, there is no essential conflict. 
One individuality does not countervail 
another, for " there can be any number of 
supremes." Though capable of endless 
modifications and progressive manifesta- 
tions, the soul remains constant in essence. 
The shifting forms of the objective world 
are one with the divine, eternal Being. 
Matter and Spirit, Nature and Man, are 
" disjoin'd and diffused no more," but are 
gathered up in the all-fusing One. 

169 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

In this interpretation of the data of ex- 
perience, it is easy to postulate the cosmic 
unity. Distinctions and the innumerable 
diverse problems of finite human existence 
are resolved in the " idea of the All." The 
world needs, say s Whitman, " a class of bards 
who will, now and ever, so link and tally 
the rational physical being of man with the 
ensembles of time and space, and with this 
vast and multiform show, Nature, surround- 
ing him, ever tantalizing him, equally a part, 
and yet not a part of him, as to essentially 
harmonize, satisfy, and put at rest." Unity 
is the goal of man's search. The artist la- 
bors for unity in each single composition. 
The scientist observes, describes, analyzes, 
and formulates, in the hope of penetrating 
to the one Law of Laws. The thinker strives 
to reconcile opposites and to embrace all 
things in a unity of thought. The religious 
consciousness finds the solution of its pro- 
blems and the satisfaction of its longings 

in the soul's union with God. 

170 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

When the full-grown poet came, 

Out spake pleased Nature, (the round impassive globe, 

with all its shows of day and night, ) saying, 

He is mine; 
But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and 

unreconciled, Nay, he is mine alone ; 
— Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and 

took each by the hand; 
And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly 

holding hands, 
Which he will never release until he reconciles the two, 
And wholly and joyously blends them. 

This is the philosophic task which Whit- 
man, consciously as a poet, undertakes. In 
practice, he harmonizes life by bringing all 
the facts of experience into relation with his 
own identity. He absorbs all objects, all 
existences, as they play across his tempera- 
ment. Of them, one and all, he weaves the 
song of himself. " I see in myself and them 
the same old law." He takes the world both 
as many and as one. Life is made up of parts ; 
"time, always without break, indicates it- 
self in parts." But the single fact is linked 
with the universal whole, and the present 

171 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

instant pulses forward into eternity. The 
secret of Whitman's reconciling interpreta- 
tion is that he accepts the parts as parts, 
not as isolated, independent fragments ; and 
always with implied reference to the whole. 
"The diverse shall be no less diverse, but 
they shall flow and unite — they unite now." 
The idea of the All, which links the parts 
in a universal common relationship, gives 
them meaning. Whitman apprehends the 
enclosing circle; and any point within it, 
any phenomenon, is defined and interpreted 
by reference to the circumference. So he is 
able to keep his bearings, as he steers his 
course through the drifting shows of expe- 
rience. His purpose is 

To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives, 

To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams, 

And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and 

pine, 
With you O soul. 

The common element in all material — spir- 
ituality — brings infinity within reach of his 

172 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

hand. He does not doubt that "the majesty 
and beauty of the world are latent in any iota 
of the world/' The whole cosmos is em- 
braced and revealed, by implication, in any 
fraction of space or divided moment of time. 
Hence his supreme reliance on the universe 
as it is. He is master of continents and seas, 
he is lord of the day and of all days. He de- 
clares himself " an acme of things accom- 
plished and an encloser of things to be. ,, 
He stands at the centre of all space and all 
time. Here and now to the soul the world 
yields up its meaning. 

In this cosmic unity Whitman necessa- 
rily recognizes the operation of law. One 
vital principle or energy works through the 
universe, manifesting itself in infinitely di- 
verse ways. To discover these workings and 
to describe their ways is the task of science. 
In so far as science reveals more of order 
and of wonder in the world, Whitman 
eagerly accepts its conclusions. He gladly 
acknowledges the service to human living 

i73 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

accomplished by the efforts of investigators 
in every field of inquiry. He salutes the lexi- 
cographer and grammarian, the chemist, the 
pioneer voyagers, the geologist, the biolog- 
ist, and the mathematician, as co-workers 
with him in the great quest. But the poet 
does not rest in the facts of the scientist. 
They are not his dwelling; but by them he 
enters an area of his dwelling. For his words 
are less the reminders of properties told than 
the reminders of lifeuntold. Positive science 
and exact demonstration, these are the start- 
ing-point whence he launches into the mys- 
teries. " There is," he says, " a phase of the 
real, lurking behind the real, which it is all 
for." Joyfully accepting modern science and 
loyally following it without the slightest 
hesitation, he conceives " still a higher flight, 
the eternal soul of man, (of all else too,) the 
spiritual, the religious." Faith has been 
" scared away by science," but now faith is 
by the cooperation of science to be restored. 
Mystical as is Whitman's religious experi- 

J 74 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

ence, therefore, he still keeps close to the 
facts of earth. Conceding everything to sci- 
ence that it demands for itself, he yet out 
of fullest knowledge declares that " the su- 
preme and final science is the science of 
God." 

The recognition of law in the universe 
does not lessen the wonder of life but rather 
enhances it. Whitman sees the world, in 
its simplest, most familiar processes no less 
than in its far-flung governance of the stars, 
as a never-ending miracle. 

Why, who makes much of a miracle ? 

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, 

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the 

sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the 

edge of the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed 

at night with any one I love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a sum- 
mer forenoon, 

175 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Or animals feeding in the fields, 

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining 

so quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon 

in spring ; 
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. 

It is wonderful to depart, wonderful to 
be here, it is wonderful to breathe, to see, it 
is wonderful to be. Each new day is a new 
wonder, each experience is a larger revela- 
tion. In his fresh reception of life, amazed 
and delighted, Whitman has the heart of 
a child. At the same time he realizes, to the 
fullest capacity of a mature mind, how deep 
is the mystery, how great God is. Whitman 
does not solve the mystery; instead, he 
propounds mystery. His very sense of the 
greatness of what is still beyond is a mark 
of his own greatness. The wonder is re- 
vealed to him, not because he has thought 
so little, but because he has felt so much. 

This insight into the mysteriousness of 

176 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

common things, this sense of the wonder- 
fulness of being, sanctifies the whole of life, 
and issues in worship and joy. 

The practical consequence of Whitman's 
interpretation of life is an immense and 
unshakable optimism. Superficially it may 
seem that the basis of his joy of the world 
is purely physical. In exceptional meas- 
ure he is constituted harmoniously. With 
senses extraordinarily keen and perfectly 
attuned, so great is his abounding health 
and his delight in it, that he is moved to 
exclaim, " All comes by the body, only 
health puts you rapport with the universe." 
This is true as far as it goes. But Whitman 
takes a step beyond, when he says, " The 
earth shall surely be complete to him or her 
who shall be complete." To interpret life 
fully and aright taxes the powers of the 
whole man. In the end, Whitman's assur- 
ance of the ultimate worth of things is not 

a facile optimism nor cheaply bought. He 

177 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

had felt " the abrupt curious questionings " 
stir within him ; and he had his dark hours 
when he "ebb'd with the ocean of life." 
He would not have compassed the circuit 
of human experience, if he had not sounded 
these depths. But his faith rises triumph- 
ant. The sure knowledge of God dis- 
closed to his vision furnishes him the in- 
terpreting and reconciling principle. 

Give me O God to sing that thought, 

Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith, 

In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not 

from us, 
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space, 
Health, peace, salvation universal. 

God is "enclosed in Time and Space"; 
the Infinite manifests itself in and through 
all finite forms. The parts are but parts. 
Taken all together, the universe is God. 
Every part, therefore, whatever value man 
may attach to it, whether good or evil as man 
conceives it, is equally the expression of 
the divine substance. In this faith, as see- 

178 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

ing all things from the point of view of the 
Universal, Whitman is able to say, "There 
is no imperfection in the present and can be 
none in the future. " His doctrine of pre- 
sent perfection means this, that everything 
is as it ought to be, when taken on its own 
terms and tried by its own standards. He 
does not " call the tortoise unworthy be- 
cause she is not something else." Every- 
thing is perfect in the measure that it is 
what it is in the total scheme, and so fulfills 
its appointed destiny. That which fills its 
period and place is equal to any, and " a 
leaf of grass is no less than the journey- 
work of the stars/' In this sense, therefore, 
" what is called good is perfect, and what is 
called bad is just as perfect." At the same 
time, Whitman quite recognizes the appar- 
ent dualism of the world, — the contrasts, 
matter and spirit, object and subject, evil 
and good ; but he knows that finally these 
opposites are not irreconcilable. He does 
not seek to escape evil by denying its ob- 

179 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

jective real existence and by attempting to 
merge the finite self, through negation, into 
an Absolute Being which is emptied of all 
content. He does not affirm that evil is a 
form of good. Whitman boldly grips evil 
just as it is, as a reality; and in recogniz- 
ing it as evil, he so transcends it. With 
clear vision he discerns differences ; but he 
apprehends a unity deeper than all differ- 
ence. Evil is actual, but it is finite and 
partial. "Only the good is universal." 

If Whitman's theoretical optimism seems 
at times somewhat too resolute to be wholly 
convincing, yet in practice he does not ig- 
nore the evils of life or seek to equivocate 
them. In the spirit of a messiah, he takes 
upon himself all the sufferings and sins of 
men. There is no meanness, no shame, no 
agony, that may not be imputed to him. 
He accepts all. In this matter Whitman 
is no abstract philosopher. He does not 
reason about evil until it becomes a fig- 
ment and phantom, or a mere term in a 

180 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

syllogism. Evil is a bitter reality. Whit- 
man knows what it is to suffer, both in his 
own experience and in the sufferings of 
others. His practical sympathy is bound- 
less. Patient, tender, compassionate, he 
looks out upon all the sorrows of the 
world. He sees, hears,and is silent. Though 
he knows that sin is sin, — it is not to be 
obscured, or theorized away, — yet he does 
not judge. As the transcendent Man of 
Sorrows said to her who was brought be- 
fore him for judgment, " Neither do I con- 
demn thee " ; so Whitman says to the fallen 
one, " Not till the sun excludes you do I 
exclude you." He loves. And loving, he 
pities, " like the light falling around a help- 
less thing." This attitude of acceptance 
is one with the divine principle, which 
allows for evil, in awaiting the evolution 
of the good. In process, the good can 
realize itself only by overcoming evil. 
Opposition is the necessary condition of 
growth. 

181 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Growth, therefore, is the explanation of 
the finite. Things are complete in them- 
selves, yet lead onward. " Do you suppose 
I could be content with all if I thought 
them their own finale ? " In his survey of 
the cosmic scheme, Whitman postulates 
perfection and allows for progress. 

In this broad earth of ours, 
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, 
Enclosed and safe within its central heart, 
Nestles the seed perfection. 

In the whole range of finite things, there 
is no part but contains within itself the 
germ of its perfection, — " by every life a 
share or more or less M ; and it awaits de- 
velopment. But as is evident in the phys- 
ical world, so also in the moral life and in 
the spiritual realm, development can come 
only through opposition and struggle. 
Hence "it is provided in the essence of 
things that from any fruition of success, 
no matter what, shall come forth some- 
thing to make a greater struggle neces- 

182 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

sary." Whitman rests his case on the uni- 
versality of the germ of good. He does not 
ignore the portentous fact of evil, or seek 
to minimize its actuality ; but he is able to 
justify it. Victory is the outcome of con- 
tending forces. Virtue is won through op- 
position. He perceives, therefore, that evil 
may be, indeed must be, transmuted into 
good. Roaming in thought over the uni- 
verse, he sees the little that is Good steadily 
hastening toward immortality, and the vast 
all that is called Evil hastening to merge 
itself and become lost and dead. The pur- 
port and end of the whole cosmic scheme, as 
Whitman interprets it, is spiritual growth. 
The central reality, primal and ultimate, 
of the universe is the soul. For it, the par- 
tial flows to the permanent; for it, the real 
to the ideal tends. The soul is the mean- 
ing of the " mystic evolution." This is the 
"guiding thread so fine along the mighty 
labyrinth. " In the light of future but cer- 
tain attainment, Whitman triumphs over 

183 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the sufferings of the present time, which 
are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed in us. We 
are saved by hope. " For the earnest ex- 
pectation of the creature waiteth for the 
manifestation of the sons of God." 

Secure in the assurance that there is a 
purpose in the world and that this purpose 
makes for good, Whitman is able to con- 
front calmly and victoriously the ultimate 
problem of life, — the meaning of death. 
Manifestly, the perfection that he conceives 
as the purport of the universe, the goal of 
all endeavor, and the justification of strife 
and evil, is not to be achieved in the one 
brief span of years upon the earth. With- 
out the "exquisite transition of death" and 
the promise of immortality, what we call 
life would be vain indeed. Development, 
Continuity, Immortality, Transformation, 
— this is Whitman's formula. Life is not 
static but progressive. It is not to be ex- 
plained from within on its own plane. Its 

184 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

secret is unlocked only by a key which is 
beyond life. " All I see and know, I believe 
to have its main purport in what will yet 
be supplied. " For Whitman, this key is 
death and " entrance to its sovereign, dim, 
illimitable grounds." In this transition 
there is no breach. Death is not cessation 
but a change; it is not the end, but only a 
new beginning. Toward this unfolding and 
release all life tends. 

I have dream' d that the purpose and essence of the 

known life, the transient, 
Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, 

the permanent. 

Whitman does not attempt to prove im- 
mortality. He asserts it. His conviction of 
its certainty is intuitive, but vivid to the 
point that leaves no room for question. Im- 
mortality is the presupposition of his entire 
experience of life, and its interpretation. 
This conception determines his way of 
thinking; and " from the first, and so on 

throughout, more or less lurks in my 

185 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

writings, underneath every page, every 
line, everywhere/' Immortality resolves all 
problems of the finite plane. The world 
has no meaning on any other terms. So 
certain is he of its necessity that he ex- 
claims, — 

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! 
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous 

float is for it, and the cohering is for it ! 
And all preparation is for it — and identity is for it — 

and life and materials are altogether for it ! 

Whitman's certitude of the beneficence 
of death's ministry is not a philosophic 
postulate; it is more than a faith. It is a 
reality. As a boy, the vision had come to 
him in the symbol of the mocking-bird be- 
reft of his mate. He sees love balked by 
loss. He questions the night and the stars. 
Then on the island shore, in the flicker 
of the sagging yellow moon, the rustle of 
the sea, blending with the wail of the 
bird, whispers the low and delicious word, 
death. 

186 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

Which I do not forget, 

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, 

That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's 

gray beach, 
With the thousand responsive songs at random, 
My own songs awaked from that hour, 
And with them the key, the word up from the 

waves, 
The word of the sweetest song and all songs, 
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my 

feet, 
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in 

sweet garments, bending aside, ) ' 
The sea whisper' d me. 

In the war-hospitals, month upon weary 
month, Whitman hourly bowed before the 
" dark mother always gliding near with 
soft feet." In the generous years that re- 
mained to him following the War, he him- 
self dwelt in the Valley of the Shadow. But 
his thought mounted thence to the supreme 
heights of vision and poetic utterance, 
meditating the mighty themes of God and 
immortality. Throughout his work, his 
finest passages are those inspired by his re- 
ligious passion and those in which he chants 

187 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the praise of death. Here truth and beauty 
blend in a paean of exaltation, and from 
the summit he calls, — 

Come lovely and soothing death, 

Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, 

In the day, in the night, to all, to each, 

Sooner or later delicate death. 

Prais'd be the fathomless universe, 
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, 
And for love, sweet love — but praise! praise! praise! 
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. 

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, 
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome ? 
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, 
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, 
come unfalteringly. 

Approach strong deliveress, 

When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously 

sing the dead, 
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, 
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. 

From me to thee glad serenades, 

Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments 
and feastings for thee, 
188 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

And the sights of the open landscape and the high- 
spread sky are fitting, 

And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful 
night. 

The night in silence under many a star, 

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose 

voice I know, 
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil' d 

death, 
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. 

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, 

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad 

fields and the prairies wide, 
Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming 

wharves and ways, 
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. 

In the result, Whitman approximates 
the essential teaching of Jesus. More than 
any other prophet, seer, and genius in the 
history of the race, Jesus had the secret of 
God. The fullness and immediacy of his 
revelation marks his primacy and absolute 
uniqueness among the sons of men. I hold 
Whitman to be a later and lesser mani- 
festation of the spirit that was in him. 

189 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Whitman, too, was granted the beatific 
vision. In the light and the strength of 
this revelation he felt himself free of for- 
mulas and creeds. He walked with God. 
Announcing the message so intrusted to 
him, he ventured to regard himself as a 
chosen prophet, recognizing, however, that 
he in his turn was not final, but that others 
are yet to come to announce anew the glad 
tidings. Inevitably, he was conscious of his 
spiritual kinship with the Master. " My 
spirit to yours, dear brother," he exclaims, 

Do not mind because many sounding your name do not 

understand you, 
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, 
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, 

and to salute those who are with you, before and 

since, and those to come also, 
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge 

and succession, 
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times, 
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of 

all theologies, 
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, 



190 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

We walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journey- 
ing up and down till we make our ineffaceable 
mark upon time and the diverse eras, 

Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women 
of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and 
lovers as we are. 

It is not in his own person that Whitman 
speaks thus, but as the simple vehicle of 
the spirit of God. The equality ascribed is 
not to be imputed to the individual. The 
greatness of the revelation, taking posses- 
sion of his soul, makes all its prophets 
equal. Its fullest expression is achieved in 
the matchless beauty and purity of Jesus. 
It is enough that a ray of this glory fell upon 
a later seer and its radiance transfigured 
life for him. 

The great fact about Walt Whitman, 
gathering up all the incredibly varied ele- 
ments of his tremendous personality into 
one inclusive unity of purpose and expres- 
sion, and making "the whole coincide," is 
this, — that he was given to the world to 

bring to men a revelation of God. What 

191 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Jesus expressed in completeness for all 
time, Whitman reaffirms in his own phrases 
and for a new generation. The central 
reality of his experience is the immediate 
presence of God. From this follows the 
controlling motive of his life, — to interpret 
God to the men and women of his own 
day, in terms of America and democracy of 
the nineteenth century. Necessarily, there 
is much in his teaching that is partial and 
local. But this necessary emphasis upon 
conditions that are finite and merely tem- 
porary need not deflect or obscure the es- 
sentials of his experience and doctrine that 
are of universal validity and application. 
Courageously he embarks upon the soul's 
adventure, unfalteringly he pursues the 
quest, triumphantly he brings it to its issue. 
It is granted him to see God. Realizing 
the oneness of his spirit with God's spirit, 
in joy and thankfulness he becomes an in- 
strument of God's manifestation of Him- 
self to men. He renounces all private inter- 

192 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

ests, he surrenders his individual will to the 
universal will, and in his special way, ac- 
cording to his capacity and powers, he de- 
votes his life to the cause. He secures for 
himself the freedom from all private ties, 
— divesting himself of the holds that would 
hold him, — which makes it possible for 
him to go out to all men equally in com- 
passion and sustaining love. "They said 
unto him, c Behold, thy mother and thy 
brethren without seek for thee/ And he 
answered them, saying, c Who is my mother 
or my brethren ? ' And he looked round 
about on them which sat about him, and 
said, c Behold my mother and my breth- 
ren!' " So there is no one to whom Whit- 
man denies his practical sympathy and lov- 
ing helpfulness. Love is the secret. Love 
of God in the heart, possessing the will 
and the life, and love of all creatures, ex- 
pressed in service. And Whitman has the 
secret. 

Religion and life are one. This is what 
i93 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the soul's adventure means to Whitman, 
— absolute, joyous, and unquestioning de- 
votion of one's self to the cause, the merging 
of all private interests in universal ends, 
a triumphant, sustaining faith in God, 
and immediate and unremitted commun- 
ion with Him. A battered, wrecked, old 
man, he sends up a song of consecration 
and of praise to God. 

All my emprises have been filPd with Thee, 

My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in 

thoughts of Thee, 
Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee ; 
Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results 

to Thee. 

Results are indeed with God. It is not for 
the individual himself to assess the value 
of his achievement. He does not know. 
But the supreme test of the worth of life 
to him as it has been apportioned him, is 
that at the end he can thank God for it. 

One effort more, my altar this bleak sand ; 
That Thou O God my life hast lighted, 
With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee, 

194 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 

Light rare untellable, lighting the very light, 

Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages ; 

For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my 

knees, 
Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee. 



TO YOU 

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stop- 
ping, turns a casual look upon you and then 
averts his face, 

Leaving it to you to prove and define it, 

Expecting the main things from you. 

The open road to which Whitman 
beckons has brought us along devi- 
ous ways. Through evil and through good, 
in victory balanced by defeat, we have at- 
tended the great companion with mingled 
faith and questionings. Obscured by dis- 
torting shadows, he has seemed to elude 
us, only to emerge again into strange and 
splendid light. But this towering gray fig- 
ure, with the scars of the years upon him, 
radiant with assured majesty, inspires con- 
fidence; and we have trusted him, though 
we are not sure we quite understand him. 
Manifestly, there is no single formula 
196 



TO YOU 

for Whitman. As the measureless tan- 
gled undergrowth has parted to reveal the 
heights of vision and achievement, so 
Whitman's own nature is compounded of 
violent contrasts. At moments he is grossly 
physical in his assertion of the natural man ; 
but it is equally evident that the essential 
fibre of his being is spiritual. " Muscle 
and pluck forever ! " he cries ; but the same 
stanza ends with the line, " Nothing en- 
dures but personal qualities." He believes 
in "the flesh and the appetites " ; and yet 
the central reality of the whole universe 
for him is the soul. His arrogance among 
all assaults upon his personality is per- 
fectly matched by his humility of spirit in 
the presence of God's manifestations of 
His mysterious way. Absolutely uncon- 
strained and inconsiderate in his irresistible 
onward movement through experience, 
he is mastered by a tenderness that passes 
the love of woman. His acute conscious- 
ness of himself and of his original relation 

197 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

to things betrays him into a pose ; but to 
know Whitman at all is to be convinced 
of his entire singleness of purpose and his 
immense sincerity. In this counterplay of 
contradictory forces, one fact is unmistak- 
able. For better or worse, Whitman is a 
tremendous, incalculable power. Imping- 
ing on the character of his reader with a 
persuasive pressure that is not to be gain- 
said, he leaves no one passive or indif- 
ferent. It is impossible to confront this 
titanic energy without submitting, for the 
moment at least, to its positiveness and 
inherent authority. The reader may wrest 
himself free, to be the more confirmed in 
his own manner of life. It cannot be helped. 
Whitman is content merely to affirm him- 
self, just as he is, without embellishment 
or disguise. It is enough for him to live 
his life as it is apportioned him, to follow 
where the way leads. Lest there be any 
misunderstanding in the matter, if you are 

the new person drawn to him, he gives 

198 



TO YOU 

you fair warning, before you attempt him 
further, that he is not what you supposed, 
but far different. Defining thus the prob- 
able terms of his companionship, he offers 
himself freely. But the choice remains 
open. The issue of the encounter he com- 
mits imperatively and unreservedly to you. 
For himself, Whitman asks only to be 
tested by experience. His appeal is to life 
direct. That vivid immediacy which char- 
acterizes his own contact with the world 
he communicates in his poetry now across 
all distance instantly to you. A big, con- 
crete, living personality flashes from out 
the printed page. Whitman is not pro- 
fessionally a poet. 

No dainty dolce affettuoso I, 

Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck' d, forbidding, I have 

arrived, 
To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the 

universe, 
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them. 

This is not the voice of some idle singer 

of an empty day. Here speaks a man in 

199 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the flesh. And what he offers is no mere 
aesthetic enjoyment: it is nothing less than 
the stern, rough, but rapturous actualities 
of life at first hand. Necessarily he must 
use some medium of communication; but 
in his poetry he will have nothing hang in 
the way like a curtain between himself and 
vou, — " not even the richest curtains." 
He asks that his performance be tried by 
Nature and the elementary laws. 

If you would understand me go to the heights or water- 
shore, 

The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or mo- 
tion of waves a key, 

The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words. 

He intends that his poems shall be "a book 
separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt 
by the intellect. ,, 

No shutter' d room or school can commune with me, 
But roughs and little children better than they. 

He promises that if we will stop with him 
this day and night, we shall possess the 

origin of all poems ; and this, we come to 

200 



TO YOU 

see, is not to master the accomplishment 
of verse, but to be " faithful to things." 
There is no hint here of art for art's sake. 

Have you reckon' d that the landscape took substance 
and form that it might be painted in a picture ? 
Or men and women that they might be written of, and 
songs sung? 

A morning-glory at his window satisfies 
him more than the metaphysics of books ; 
and " the cow crunching with depress'd 
head surpasses any statue." Life is immea- 
surably rich in and of itself, — beyond the 
reach of words. The press of his foot to the 
earth springs a hundred affections, which 
scorn the best he can do to relate them. 
The words of his book he conceives to be 
nothing, but "the drift of it everything"; 
he means that untold latencies shall thrill 
to every page. When he does achieve ex- 
pression, his words communicate the very 
sensation of the thing itself. He catches the 
rhythm of the unquiet sea, and he emulates 
the melodious character of the earth ; his 

20I 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

verses breathe the tonic fragrance of ocean, 
and touch us as with the caress of the sun- 
set breeze. " Leaves of Grass" is an excur- 
sion into life : it takes us on a morning ram- 
ble through woods and fields, animate with 
myriad presences and vocal with all natural 
sounds; it is an afternoon saunter down 
Broadway with and against the great human 
tides, or a glimpse at many diverse activi- 
ties and occupations ; it is a lonely venture 
into the night, in communion of spirit with 
the eloquent silence of the stars. To you, 
whoever you are, this is Whitman's mes- 
sage, — life, "immense in passion, pulse, 
and power," but life immediately and al- 
ways at first hand. 

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take 
things from me, 

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your- 
self. 

So Whitman defines himself less as a 

poet or as a teacher than as an influence. 

At first he imposes by sheer scale. The in- 

202 



TO YOU 



tense positiveness of his personality and 
the magnitude of his compass coerce and 
overwhelm. But unaccountably, we are 
drawn to him as well. More potent than 
his assertiveness, more inclusive than the 
range of his thought, is his love. Once we 
yield to him at all, we cannot escape the 
flood of sympathy with which he would 
envelop us. He wins our assent, not by 
his authority, but by the nobility and 
beauty of the ideal he embodies. He works 
by contagion. The ideals which he repre- 
sents, which use his personality as their 
instrument of expression, the ideals of 
love, of sympathy, of the culture of the 
self in order to a larger self-devotion and 
fuller service in the cause, these ideals are 
communicated to us to modify the very 
fibre of our character. If we read Whitman 
aright, it is not to become his disciples ; it 
is in ourselves to be love and service. The 
external details of his experience were spe- 
cial to him as an individual. The outcome 

203 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

of that experience is capable of general ap- 
plication. Whitman's results are true for 
him. They become true for the reader in 
so far as he makes trial of them and finds 
them to be the expression also of his own 
nature. It is Whitman's attitude rather than 
his acts, it is his method rather than his con- 
clusions, that finally counts. For the mo- 
ment, however, it may help toward a tenta- 
tive estimate of Whitman's significance, to 
formulate his teaching with reference to its 
general application, remembering that when 
all is said, he expects " the main things from 
you. 

ThecardinalpointofWhitman'sdoctrine 
is the importance of the individual. About 
this theme his thought plays from begin- 
ning to end with uncompromising insist- 
ence; but at the same time his conception 
of it undergoes an evolution. It amplifies 
in ever enlarging, more inclusive circles. In 
the expanding compass of his thought, the 

individual retains always his individuality, 

204 



TO YOU 

but the particular becomes merged in the 
universal. As becomes evident before we 
reach the end of Whitman, he really means 
the soul. But at the instant, he sees the par- 
ticular with such intense distinctness that his 
expression imputes to it an exclusive char- 
acter that it does not possess in his total con- 
ception of it. Here, as elsewhere in Whit- 
man, the part, to be rightly understood, 
must be referred to the whole. 

Whitman starts with the external and the 
physical. He celebrates the well-begotten, 
well-born, well-framed man and woman. 
He admires the healthy and the normal, the 
man or woman who is strong, firm-fibred 
in body, and sane of mind. He glorifies the 
power that comes with abundance rather 
than from singularity. It is the average man, 
not the exceptional, who has in him the 
makings of a hero. Moreover, in his doc- 
trine Whitman does not distinguish between 
the man and the woman. Not only are they 
absolutely equal in capacity and opportun- 

205 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ity , but he sees no difference in them. What 
is true for one is just as true, and that in all 
respects, for the other. Invariably when he 
invokes the man, he invokes the woman too. 
" I say to any man or woman "; " The man 
and woman I love "; " I launch all men and 
women forward," — the phrase is continu- 
ally on his lips. 

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, 
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, 
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. 

Similarly he makes no distinction in sta- 
tion or condition. Whether the President 
at his levee or Cudge that hoes in the sugar- 
field, whether successful. or defeated as this 
world goes, whether prophet or felon, — 

-Each of us inevitable, 
Each of us limitless — each of us with his or her right 

upon the earth, 
Each of us allow' d the eternal purports of the earth, 
Each of us here as divinely as any is here. 

It matters not who or what you are, you 

have your chance, — you as an individual. 

206 



TO YOU 

"O soul, we have positively appeared — 
that is enough." 

With the desire to set forth a complete 
human personality in all its activities and 
meanings, Whitman is led to include within 
his total scheme a seriesof poems celebrating 
sex. To him, fatherhood is no less beautiful 
and divine than maternity. It is not neces- 
sary to discuss here the question of his wis- 
dom or unwisdom. In many passages in his 
prose writings — notably in " A Memoran- 
dum at a Venture," and in his account given 
in "Specimen Days " of a conversation with 
Emerson — he has explained his purpose; 
and he has found able and brilliant cham- 
pionsamongbothmenand women. Itiscon- 
ceivable that one may question the absolute 
success of the result, whether on the score of 
literary workmanship or on the ground of 
expediency with regard to conventional mo- 
rality. His sex poems are not his best work ; 
here the propagandist overcomes the poet. 
It is impossible, however, not to concede 

207 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

that Whitman, whether or not successful 
in the result, was justified in his attempt 
by reference to his total purpose to present 
a personality in its entirety. By way of a 
single word it may be said that these much- 
disputed poems mean simply what they hap- 
pen to mean to theindividual reader. If they 
are an offense, they are an offense. Yet much 
of Whitman still remains. On the other 
hand, they are right to those who see them 
so. A side-light on this controverted topic 
comes from a writer who was the extreme 
opposite of Whitman in his attitude toward 
the proprieties. Quite without reference to 
"Leaves of Grass," Ruskinsays in " Mod- 
ern Painters": — 

" We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in 
plain and few words, at least as far as regards 
art. There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, 
however commonplace. It may be unimport- 
ant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity 
is only in concealment of truth, or in affecta- 
tion." 

208 



TO YOU 

Says the crystal-souled Emerson, from 
the clear, cold ether-purity of his snow- 
wrapped summit: — 

All are needed by each one ; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

To Whitman every part is beautiful, be- 
cause he sees the whole. 

I will not make poems with reference to parts, 

But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference 

to ensemble, 
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with 

reference to all days, 
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a 

poem but has reference to the soul, 
Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I 

find there is no one nor any particle of one but 

has reference to the soul. 

To be at all — this is the starting-point. 
At first itseemsto Whitman thatall proceeds 
from " beautiful blood and a beautiful brain ." 
But from the power that comes with phy- 
sique he passes, by a natural and inevitable 
transition, to the personal qualities. These 

are in some measure a gift of Nature, in which 

209 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

the individual himself has no choice, — a 
fact which perhaps Whitman does not suf- 
ficiently recognize, — but they are also cap- 
able of cultivation. Just here, then, begins 
the suggestive and helpful part of Whit- 
man's teaching. By personal qualities he 
means self-respect, self-mastery, individual 
freedom under divine law, and the devel- 
oped capacity for self-devotion to the serv- 
ice of others in love and sympathy. The 
qualities he prizes, therefore, can be achieved 
by any one, independently of external con- 
ditions. Whitman exemplifies them in him- 
self; and he communicates them to another 
by force of natural contagion. Moreover, 
they are of such a character as to recom- 
mend themselves by virtue of their own evi- 
dent worth and beauty. Their appeal, once 
they are truly known, is in themselves; and 
it is compelling. Whitman's function is to 
reveal their true nature ; and he leaves the 
rest "to you." In assessing values in life, 
he initiates his own standard. For the con- 

2IO 



TO YOU 

ventional goods that the world esteems, he 
substitutes new worths. He sets no store 
by the possession of material things. He 
admires the animals because they are self- 
contained and are not "demented with the 
mania of owning things." He makes no 
account of ownership anyway, " as if one fit 
to own things could not at pleasure enter 
upon all, and incorporate them into himself 
or herself." The real goods of life, the sun 
and the rain, the air, the beauty of earth, 
are free, and do not need to be possessed 
to be enjoyed. " I or you pocketless of a 
dime may purchase the pick of the earth." 
Any man, if only he have the capacity in 
himself, has access to all the gifts of the 
universe. The personal qualities, therefore, 
that Whitman celebrates are not limited 
to a class, but are eligible to all. He discerns 
"what vast native thoughts" may look 
"through smutch'd faces." He strips offthe 
husks of conventional estimates and pene- 
trates to the central manhood of each indi- 

21 I 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

vidual. To be human, that is the main thing. 
He abolishes class distinctions, breaks the 
pride of caste, wrenches us out of our tra- 
ditional background, and plants us squarely 
on our own feet, to stand or fall by what 
we are in ourselves. He is for "the fibre 
of things and for inherent men and wo- 
men." 

In order to emphasize the universality 
of the true goods that life holds, Whitman 
chooses for his exemplar the " average man." 
The phrase is not quite exact, but his mean- 
ing is clear enough. He will not reckon with 
the exclusive and the elect, though he does 
not deny them their chance as well. It is 
sometimes remarked that by a curious irony 
the very people that Whitman most glori- 
fies are least able to grasp the significance 
of his work. The average man, it is said, 
does not read " Leaves of Grass." For him- 
self, Whitman likes best those who get the 
real culture from life and not from books, 
those who do not pretend to read but are 

212 



TO YOU 

closest to actuality, — farmers, woodsmen, 
sailors, artisans. Such people, the <c roughs 
and little children," do not understand 
" Leaves of Grass," perhaps, but they un- 
derstood Whitman. And they understand 
him to-day, when once they have passed the 
barrier of the printed page, when they hear 
the living spoken word and touch the pre- 
sence that moves within it. The culture for 
which Whitman pleads is the culture of the 
personality, the return from external stand- 
ards and supports to one's own native force 
and the authority inherent in one's self. If 
one have the natural qualities, that is enough. 
"I do not ask who you are, that is not im- 
portant to me." The individual becomes a 
man, not by allowance or good-fortune, but 
in his own right. He constitutes himself 
his own centre. Taking his stand upon his 
necessary Tightness in the scheme of things, 
he comes into harmony with the universal 
laws, and achieves equilibrium. From him, 
as a perfectly poised centre, radiate influ- 

213 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

ences which have the weight of the whole 
world behind them. 

But there may be as many centres as 
there are individuals. " There can be any 
number of supremes — one does not coun- 
tervail another any more than one eyesight 
countervails another, or one life counter- 
vails another.'' Whitman's hero differs from 
the hero of Carlyle, in that he does not as- 
sert himself at the expense of others, but 
develops in cooperation with them. Carlyle 
divides mankind rigidly into two classes — 
the hero and the masses. The hero is the 
strong and able man, of extraordinary nat- 
ural gifts and exceptional opportunity. All 
others are the masses ; and they but furnish 
the background against which the hero ad- 
vances his preeminence. Whitman, on the 
contrary, declares that "there is no 'trade 
or employment but the young man follow- 
ing it may become a hero." It is all in 
one's self. Mastership is not relative to the 
inferiority of others, but is the absolute 

214 



TO YOU 

development of one's own powers and posi- 
tive qualities with reference solely to one's 
own possibilities. In this sense one may be 
a hero, even though he seem to others to 
have failed. 

Vivas to those who have fail' d ! 

And to those whose war- vessels sank in the sea! 

And to those themselves who sank in the sea! 

And to all generals that lost engagements, and all over- 
come heroes! 

And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the great- 
est heroes known! 

Such mastership as Whitman conceives, 
therefore, is within the reach of every man. 
It rests with him, independently of all 
external conditions, to achieve it. Whit- 
man's special doctrine of individuality may 
be denned more clearly, perhaps, by con- 
trast with the teaching in this regard of two 
other contemporary Americans — Thoreau 
and Emerson. Thoreau is concerned with 
the destiny of an individual, namely, Henry 
David Thoreau. His efforts are directed 
to the working-out of his own salvation in 

215 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

seclusion from the world and by assert- 
ing himself against the ways of men. His 
scheme of life may have succeeded per- 
fectly for him. But his truth is true by ex- 
ception; it is not capable of extension to 
men in the mass. Universally applied, it 
contains within itself the elements of its 
own destruction. Emerson, for his part, 
discourses upon the individual, generically. 
And one feels, even in his highest flights 
and when he writes most potently and 
persuasively, that Emerson is dealing with 
an abstraction, and not a concrete reality 
which one can achieve in one's own per- 
son. It is not an individual nor the indi- 
vidual, that Whitman has in mind, but 
individuals. He deals not with abstrac- 
tions but with actualities as they uncom- 
promisingly are. He does not obscure indi- 
vidual limits. One fact, though linked with 
all other facts, and though capable of devel- 
opment from within, remains indefeasibly 
itself to all eternity. 

216 



TO YOU 

Underneath all, individuals, 

I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores indi- 
viduals, 

The American compact is altogether with individuals, 

The only government is that which makes minute of 
individuals, 

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly 
to one single individual — namely to You. 

By the term "individual," Whitman means 
a very definite reality. He means you, who- 
ever and whatever you are. There is no 
mistaking his intention, or the application 
of his doctrine. 

But Whitman is aware, too, that no man 
lives to himself alone. The development 
and self-realization of the individual soul, 
which he glorifies and toward which his 
work tends, is not for its own sake only: 
it is for the sake of the mass as well. 

One's-self I sing, a simple separate person, 

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. 

Although the destiny of man is to fulfill his 
own personality, yet Whitman considers 

individuals always in their relation to the 

217 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

natural world around them, and in their 
relations to one another in organized soci- 
ety. He sees that the necessary condi- 
tions of attaining the mastership which he 
conceives for each individual are the seem- 
ingly conflicting modes of freedom and co- 
operation. By freedom he understands an 
independence of all external restraints, and, 
complementing this, a harmony with one's 
self and with the universal laws, as the only 
means whereby the individual can enter 
into his natural heritage. There must be 
also, on the other hand, cooperation with 
one's fellows, and not opposition or subju- 
gation ; for the individual reaches his high- 
est self only through love and sympathy. 
So the problem of society is twofold: at the 
same time that it provides for organiza- 
tion, it must leave scope to the individ- 
ual for his freest and fullest development. 
It cannot be said that the individual is 
for the sake of society, or that society is for 

the sake of the individual. The interests 

218 



TO YOU 

of one are the interests of the other; like 
the convex and the concave of an arc, they 
must exist together. The social order which 
seems best to provide the necessary con- 
ditions for the highest development of 
the individual is a democracy, in that it 
furnishes him the largest opportunity for 
expression and growth. And conversely, it 
is the aggregate of freest and most powerful 
personalities that makes possible the truest 
and best democracy. 

In the remarkable essay entitled " Demo- 
cratic Vistas," an essay which will repay 
reading for its timely pertinence, shrewd in- 
sight, and profound suggestiveness, Whit- 
man outlines his programme. Though still 
in the formative stage, the United States 
perfectly supplies the conditions for the 
realization of the democratic ideal. Whit- 
man expressly takes issue with the old- 
world civilizations for their artificial sys- 
tems of caste and social exclusiveness. He 

rests his whole case upon " the theory of 

219 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

development and perfection by voluntary 
standards and self-reliance." He has no 
illusions about the present order of things 
in America. " Society, in these States, is 
canker'd, crude, superstitious, and rotten." 
But he is not without hope, for he sees a 
remedy, and he trusts the future. America 
is immense in material resources, in the 
numbers of its people, and in the sturdy 
character of the vast average, immense also 
in its possibilities for expansion. However, 
Whitman is not content with merely this. 
And here is the remedy. He pleads for a 
great moral and religious civilization as the 
only justification of a great material one. It 
is not enough that a country possess free 
political institutions, and material and in- 
dustrial resources of prodigious extent and 
incalculable wealth. So much we have al- 
ready in the United States. " But woe to 
the age or land in which these things, move- 
ments, stopping at themselves, do not tend 

to ideas." The real purpose of the best 

220 



TO YOU 

social order is the making of personalism. 
" The last, best dependence is to be upon 
humanity itself, and its own inherent, 
normal, full-grown qualities." To this end 
everything must be constrained to minis- 
ter. Democracy must have its own forms 
of art and literature, for the soul of man 
needs what is addressed to the soul. " The 
literature, songs, esthetics, &c, of a coun- 
try are of importance principally because 
they furnish the materials and suggestions 
of personality for the women and men of 
that country, and enforce them in a thou- 
sand effective ways." But greater than all 
Culture are " the fresh, eternal qualities 
of Being." So far as a civilization fails to 
develop these qualities, it fails completely. 
Material wealth and intellectual acumen 
are of no avail unless they tend toward 
the soul. Democracy, if it is inspired by the 
highest ideal and so is able to triumph 
over its necessary limitations, makes this 
development possible. For it seeks not 

221 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

only to individualize but also to universal- 
ize. 

" What Christ appear'd for in the moral- 
spiritual field for human-kind, namely, that in 
respect to the absolute soul, there is in the pos- 
session of such by each single individual, some- 
thing so transcendent, so incapable of gradations, 
(like life,) that, to that extent, it places all beings 
on a common level, utterly regardless of the dis- 
tinctions of intellect, virtue, station, or any height 
or lowliness whatever," 

— so democracy as a social order, when thor- 
oughly spiritualized as Whitman pleads for 
it, recognizing the equality of men and of 
souls, is worthy of our most earnest efforts 
toward its realization. Whitman's interest 
in this matter is more than merely theo- 
retical. The aim which he has so genuinely 
and profoundly at heart is to be reached by 
every possible means. If a social order can 
be so framed as to contribute to this end, 
then that way our duty lies. 

222 



TO YOU 

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, 
If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in 
the whole world. 

In his social and political propaganda, as 
in the lesson of his life, his purpose is the 
building of great personalities. 

From Whitman's conception of the full 
import of individuality follows his moral- 
ity. And it is indeed a morality for heroes. 
Admitting no standards other than those of 
his own nature harmonized with universal 
laws, the individual accepts the fullest con- 
sequences of what he chooses to be. There 
can be no delegated responsibility and no 
vicarious atonement. The individual is his 
own Saviour or his own Satan. 

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the 
word of the past and present, and the true word 
of immortality; 
No one can acquire for another — not one, 
Not one can grow for another — not one. 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him, 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to 
him, 

223 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most 

to him, 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him, 
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him, 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — 

it cannot fail. 

Nothing fails of its perfect return. We can- 
not escape ourselves. Reward and punish- 
ment are not meted out by an overruling 
external power; they inhere in the act it- 
self, and it rests with the individual freely 
to choose. " We are beautiful or sinful 
in ourselves only." This law of natural 
compensation operates inexorably, but it 
should not determine the motives of con- 
duct. Constructively, Whitman's morality 
is the morality of health and affirmation. 
There is in it no element of fear. He be- 
lieves in the fullest self-expression, not 
with reference to punishment or reward, 
but for its own sake. The standard of action 
is not conformity to an external code, but 
inner Tightness. The individual is to act 

in freedom. Freedom may be won in its 

224 



TO YOU 

inception by opposition to the lesser law, 
but the highest freedom is harmony with 
the highest law, the universal. It must be 
confessed that this morality is not for little 
men. It appeals to the best, not the worst, 
in man, and it presupposes the loftiest 
ideal. That it winnows the unfit along 
the way and leaves them struggling, is not 
Whitman's fault but theirs. His teaching 
is meant to be inclusive ; and it is universal 
enough in its scope and application to ad- 
mit of many interpretations, — like the 
laws of Nature. But like thelaws of Nature, 
when ignorantly or willfully misunderstood, 
it carries with it its own retribution. That 
Whitman's declaration of independence 
may be perverted to excuse license is no ar- 
raignment of its righteousness and justice. 
It reverts to the individual himself and is 
the measure of his own morality. The 
watchwords of Whitman's ethics are En- 
semble, Evolution, Freedom, set in the sky 

of Law. 

225 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

Throughout, Whitman's ideal of achieve- 
ment is spiritual manhood. The purport 
of life and its fruition are of the soul. The 
material and the physical are redeemed by 
his conquering spirituality; the human is 
glorious because it incarnates the divine. 
Earth takes its meaning as we discern in it 

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images 
ripening. 

To his rapt vision the seen is the prophecy 
of the unseen. With this faith, glorying in 
the present goodness of earth and secure 
in the promise of the future, he confronts 
all problems. Whitman trusts the soul, and 
he is willing to await development through 
seons, for he knows " the amplitude of 
time." God is : and results are in His hands. 

The culminating impression of Whit- 
man's personality is the sense that here is 
a man who, in spite of his unconventional 
manner and strange fashion of life, does 

finally and intimately understand me. One 

226 



TO YOU 

feels that this man knows what life is: he 
has been all the way round it, he has walked 
its deep places, he has mounted its heights ; 
somehow, at some point, he has entered 
into my particular experience. His many- 
sided contact with men and things has been 
rich and fruitful for himself; but the re- 
sults are not for himself alone. He has suf- 
fered in my sorrows and known my grief. 
The joy that he had of life, — 

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all 

hours of the day, 
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and 

hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage 

over the river, 

— these may be my joy too, my sustenance 
and my glories. And in my joy his own 
finds intensification and its crown. 

Whatever our mood, whatever our need, 
we can turn to Whitman and meet re- 
sponse. His understanding is complete, 
his sympathy universal. We can do nothing 

and be nothing, but he will enfold us. He 

227 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

knows our faults and our weaknesses, and 
he accepts them. He has the same in him- 



se 



If. 



I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, 
Blabb'd, blush' d, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, 
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dar'd not speak, 
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, 

malignant, 
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, 
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous 

wish, not wanting, 
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none 

of these wanting. 

So he understands with an understanding 
born of experience ; he reaches us with a 
sympathy born of love. The magnetism 
which Whitman effused in life still radiates 
from the personality that is vital in his po- 
ems. Out of the past a voice speaks which 
is as a presence with us at the instant and 
a secure possession for the future. 

When you read these I that was visible am become 

invisible, 
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, 

seeking me, 

228 



TO YOU 

Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you 

and become your comrade; 
Be it as if I were with you. ( Be not too certain but I 

am now with you.) 

Yet Walt Whitman is not final. 

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the 

future, 
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back 

in the darkness. 

He never loses sight of his merely repre- 
sentative character. Again and again, in a 
thousand different ways, he brings home 
the lesson to you. He genuinely intends 
that his poems shall be only a preparation 
and a beginning. 

The words of the true poems give you more than 

poems, 
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, 

politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, 

daily life, and every thing else. 

His Leaves of Grass are but roots and 
leaves alone — " love-buds put before you 
and within you whoever you are." 

229 



AN APPROACH TO WALT WHITMAN 

If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will 
open and bring form, color, perfume, to you, 

If you become the aliment and the wet, they will be- 
come fruits, tall branches and trees. 

The significance of Whitman, even as he 
himself conceives it, is what awakes in the 
individual reader as the result of contact 
with this germinal personality. It is his ex- 
press desire and purpose to carry us beyond 
himself. " He most honors my style who 
learns under it to destroy the teacher." 
However deep our gratitude to Whitman 
for what he may have done for us along 
life's way, however intense our loyalty to 
his person and name, we should not mis- 
take the man for his message. It is an error 
to worship Whitman. We reap the full 
fruits of his teaching in the measure that 
we worship what Whitman worshiped and 
what he was sent into the world to show 
forth. Life spreads before us, an open road. 
Walt Whitman is one of the Great Com- 
panions along the way. " Allons ! whoever 

230 



TO YOU 

you are, come travel with me ! " We may 
accept his example as suggestive and illum- 
inating. We may acknowledge his sustain- 
ing influence. Finally, we must travel the 
road, each for himself. At the last and best, 
Whitman is a comrade in the soul's ad- 
venture. 

As he reaches a genial hand to us in 
token of comradeship, he beams the assur- 
ance, — 

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, 
Missing me one place search another, 
I stop somewhere waiting for you. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



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